Lebrusan Studio launches its Ethical Jewellery Movement Manifesto
Though sculpted around Lebrusan’s fundamental ideas, the manifesto was written with ideological input from the wider Lebrusan Studio team and fellow ethical jeweller, Anna Loucah
Ethical jewellery studio Lebrusan Studio has published its Ethical Jewellery Movement Manifesto.
Complete with its own website, the manifesto presents a detailed vision of a future jewellery industry that is “fairer, safer, more sustainable and centred more heavily on reparations”.
It calls upon artists, designers, manufacturers, traders, retailers, journalists, workers, citizens of the world to join the movement towards this vision; the movement to “change the world, one gram of gold at a time”.
Arabel Lebrusan, the visual artist and award-winning designer behind Lebrusan Studio, hopes the manifesto will unite “like-minded people with a clearly defined, shared goal”.
Though sculpted around Lebrusan’s fundamental ideas, the manifesto was written with ideological input from the wider Lebrusan Studio team and fellow ethical jeweller, Anna Loucah.
It concerns itself with jewellery’s power to serve as an active vessel for social, political, environmental and economic change; touching on notions such as circularity, restorative justice, cultural heritage and storytelling.
The manifesto’s dedicated website invites readers to sign the manifesto with their name and email address, then spread the word by presenting the text on their own websites and sharing a selection of downloadable graphics on their social profiles, tapping into the #ethicaljewellerymovement hashtag.
Lebrusan said: “Since helping to launch the Fairtrade Gold initiative as one of the world’s first ever Fairtrade-licensed jewellers in 2012 and offering my TEDx talk on ethical jewellery in 2015, I have been seen as a pioneer of the ethical jewellery movement. But I was interviewed by a journalist a little while back who asked me to explain the basic principles of the ‘ethical jewellery movement’ and I realised that I had never really written them down on paper.
“Years ago, I might have found this task frightening, but today my vision of the world I’d like to inhabit is unfaltering. Articulating this vision as six clear points has proven a cathartic exercise. I hope the manifesto will offer an optimistic, tangible set of goals for others like me to work towards, too. I would feel proud if my legacy were a positive offering to the jewellery industry.”
