Emerging Fervour

Looking through all of Kali Arulpragasam’s collections throughout the years from her jewellery line, Super Fertile, it’s clear that she has never waivered from her original objective, to highlight the issues facing the world today. Kali is M.I.A’s sister, and they’re both into the whole politics game…they want people to question and debate the things that are going in the world and not be entranced by the glitz portrayed in the media. I really admire Kali, she’s gone against the mainstream and made Super Fertile completely her own. Take a look at all her Collections on her Super Fertile site, but I’ve focused on my top 3 Collections from her site.

Summer 2010 ‘CRA$H’ Collection

‘Mortgage debt greater than the value of homes’ ^

’3 Million unemployed and rising’ ^

‘British economy shrinks 3.5% Worst since 1945′ ^

‘Broke’, ‘Debts’ ^

^ ‘Won’t Pay Bills’, ‘Can’t Pay Bills’, ’15 Million workers lost their jobs worldwide’

So turning political messages into hip hop style jewellery is a pretty wicked idea from Kali, but what are her real reasons behind creating such a bold collection with such strong messages and facts? On a recent interview with Viceland, she says the following of this collection:

“I wanted to do something that manipulates glitz and brings reality and misery into glamour. Even though the stones are selling something so miserable, it’s still fantastic. It’s a sort of clash that works really well, unemployment, homelessness, debt, statistics, numbers – the truth about the economic crisis. I wanted to show that jewellery is a very powerful medium, we can do more with it than yet some more teeth on a chain or skulls on a ring. You can use it to speak the truth about the banking bail out and pensioners losing their life savings”.

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This isn’t Kali’s first collection that goes against the norm – check her Summer 2009 collection -

Summer 2009 ‘The Real Superstars’ Collection…

Kali sees that there are 10 inventors who are ‘The Real Superstars’, there is nothing mainstream about this list of people. No more worshipping the glamourised superstars that dominate our TV screens.

In the same interview with Viceland, Kali also talks about the Real Superstars collection:

“Real Superstars” was pointing out that there are people who do a little bit more for society then just entertain. People like John Shephard Barron, the inventor of the ATM, and Alec Jeffreys, who came up with genetic fingerprinting. Having John and Alec emailing me asking asking me about my jewellery was really exciting. I’m lucky in a way; the Harvard research team are happy when I stalk them. Probably because the rest of the world aren’t that interested, which is a shame.

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Finally on my list of favourite three is Kali’s Spring 2009 Collection – this really reminds me of Litter, accessory designers we covered back in September – who created straps and shoe chains that would spice up a simple item.

Spring 2009 ‘Hunger’ Collection

The Hunger Collection is to raise awareness of the world food crisis. The beads are crafted from special metals, like silver and gold-plated; this symbolises how precious these stable foods are to starving countries in the battle against the rising cost of food. Oxfam actually asked Super Fertile to work together to raise awareness and as a result, 7% of profile from these sales will go towards helping Oxfam with this cause. Contact Kali on info@superfertile.com

For more information on buying any of the pieces featured on this blog, then contact Super Fertile on shop@superfertile.com or to contact her for more information on Super Fertile then email info@superfertile.com