Harrison Pickering, working under the moniker 'Loki Patera', is a jeweller and designer based in Australia.

His pieces are united by a feeling – that they could all be found in the secret parts of the earth as part of some poetic quest. Hidden within the hollow gnarled trunk of an ancient tree, or buried in the silt of a long untouched swamp. A sense of fantasy brought into the modern age.

He is currently working on a jewellery collection that investigates the geology of the Anthropocene, aggregating and then ‘mining’ waste matter to become sustainable gemstone alternatives.

His pieces have been exhibited in Australia and internationally, with work being featured in Vogue Australia, Harper’s Bazaar, Spur Magazine (Japan), Oyster Magazine, Sydney Contemporary Art Fair and the Australian Design Centre.

A tension that I have been poking at is the how the ancient and the futuristic seem to collapse into one another with every step we take along this path of modernity.

How ancient fossils that fuel our malignant economy become alchemised into novel chemicals which are deposited in the geologic record for future ages to discover.

The fossilised shell is a symbol of primordial Earth, something that has been appearing to me more and more, as if beckoning.

Building on my research into geology of the Anthropocene, I have been exploring fossils and technofossils – human-made artefacts that will theoretically remain in the geologic record for eons to come.

The materials for my technofossil have been scavenged through a network of relationships I have developed within the industry, and within my local environment. Opal suppliers have sent me fragile unusable chips and broken stones. Another stone supplier has sent me all their offcuts from the gem carving they do. A gourmet uni harvester on the South Coast has provided me with a box of their sea urchin spine and shell waste, a beautiful purple. Healthy macadamias felled and burned on the farm next to my house have had their ash salvaged and included...

"What will our society leave behind in Earth's geologic record?" This is my playful response to that somewhat troubling question, and a pragmatic way to revalue the minerals and materials we already have above ground.