A collaboration with Frances Wadsworth Jones

3D printed veroblack resin, brass, automotive paint and plywood

2022

Shown as part of ‘In Our Veins Flow Ink and Fire’, the 5th Kochi-Muziris Biennale

Second-hand Time is a speculative reconstruction of the fabled Kokoshnik tiara; a pearl and diamond diadem that was a favourite among the Romanov empresses. After the execution of the Tsar Nicolas II and his family in 1918, the tiara, alongside the rest of the Russian crown jewels, was nationalised by the Bolshevik regime, and in 1927 was auctioned by Christie’s on behalf of Joseph Stalin’s government. The proceeds from the sale were intended to fund agrarian reform in newly Communist Russia – an effort that would prove disastrous, leading to the complete collapse of agricultural production in the Soviet Union.

In February 2016, the Kokoshnik tiara unexpectedly reappeared at the press conference for another auction, this time in Manila. After the fall of the Marcos’ kleptocratic dictatorship in 1986, Imelda’s horde of fine jewellery was seized, the Kokoshnik amongst them. Three decades later, plans were finally announced for a sale, to be held by Christie’s, with the proceeds going towards agrarian reform in the Philippines. However, the victory of Rodrigo Duterte, a Marcos sympathiser, in the presidential elections later that year, and the subsequent election of Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022, have ensured that the auction of the ill-gotten jewellery has never taken place. The Kokoshnik remains locked in the vault of the Philippine central bank, condemned to a state of irresolution, as the Marcoses engage in widespread historical distortion and reclaim political power.

Using images gathered from news footage and scant documentation, Wadsworth Jones meticulously digitally modelled the Kokoshnik tiara, resulting in a 3D printed resin sculpture that is equal parts forensic reconstruction and creative speculation. In this act of remaking and tracing its outrageous provenance, Abad and Wadsworth Jones transform the luxurious accessory into a spectral witness to endless cycles of upheaval and impunity – an enduring piece of evidence to histories that keep on being rewritten.