[1] In the early eighties, Freeman was a prominent member of a group of jewellers who began exploring the use of local materials in contemporary jewellery.

“They declared us Nuclear Free, and started developing a foreign policy that was about living in the South Pacific as opposed to being an adjunct of Europe.

Our work got swept up in it and adopted by locals as ‘emblematic’ in the way jewellery can.” [5] Freeman was one of twelve jewellers selected for the landmark 1988 Bone Stone Shell exhibition, developed by New Zealand's Craft Council for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and shown in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

[1] In the same year he was named 2002 Laureate by the Françoise van den Bosch Foundation, based at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.

[1] Freeman was the founding chair of Auckland contemporary craft and design gallery Objectspace, and in 2013 became a Governor of the New Zealand Arts Foundation.