[4] It was curated by artist John Edgar with a selection panel consisting of Edith Ryan, craft programme manager, QE II Arts Council; James Mack, director of the Dowse Art Museum; and jeweller Kobi Bosshard.
[5] Twelve artists were eventually selected and they made over 40 new pieces of work in total from bone, stone and shell.
[7] It showed New Zealand artists taking inspiration from the history of Maori and Pacific adornment, rather than just Western traditions, and the use of local materials like paua shell and pounamu, rather than the precious stones and metal of European jewellery.
[7] As curator John Edgar wrote in the exhibition catalogue: This exhibition is about awareness – of our heritage of Western civilisation and our cultural environment in the South Pacific; of our place in the twentieth century and the values necessary to survive the nuclear age; of the delicate fragility of our ecology and our relationship to the natural materials and the non-renewable resources of our region; of the celebration of the forces that formed these materials and the life within them; and, of the ability to communicate in objects of beauty, spirit and power.
[4] In 2013/14 Te Papa restaged the works from Bone Stone Shell alongside more recent pieces of contemporary jewellery and pieces from its Maori and Pacific collections.