We ask Cinnamon Lee about the origins of her award-winning lamp/jewel that honours the Bogong moth.

✿ How did the idea of NOCTUA come about?

In 2023, I created a body of work exploring my ongoing fascination with light. The exhibition was titled Lux Nocturna, a Latin phrase that translates to “night light,” but can be more explicitly interpreted as “light belonging to the night.” This work investigated elusive, fleeting forms of light relating to nightfall – from dusk skies and electrical storms, to the mysteriously covert appearance and behaviour of nocturnal creatures. The exhibition took the form of illuminated wall works as well as a collaborative audio-visual performance. This was also the first time I brought the two strands of my practice – jewellery and lighting – together in a literal way, which was largely in response to being faced with the challenge of filling a generously sized gallery space. Essentially, I sought to find a way I could have very small objects hold a much larger presence. This sparked the concept for the first versions of my ‘brooch-projectors’ – wearable brooches that also doubled as light sculptures. These focused specifically on Australian hawk moths, as I became seduced by their impressive camouflaged wing patterns and brightly coloured hidden underwings. The lamp components for this series simply employed the use of battery-powered flashlights clipped conveniently into microphone stands.

NOCTUA evolved from this idea, and the MAKE Award presented an opportunity to develop it into a more fully integrated hybrid object…with more layers, and even more secrets. Importantly, I also wanted NOCTUA to speak to the most recent decade of my practice, which has focused on fine jewellery. This was achieved by the inclusion of over ten carats of brilliant cut sapphires, used to create an impression that could at once be both inherently precious, in the form of a brooch, and completely immaterial, as projected light.

The NOCTUA brooch is made from two layers – titanium forms the outer layer and sterling silver the inner. Each is pierced with a fine grid of holes, which creates a kind of mesh trapping over three hundred tiny sapphires in place. The gems are ‘set’ literally back to front, so that the culets (pointed base) of each are facing out. When worn, the drilled perforations act as a kind of veil, obscuring the gems so that they only glimmer like a ghostly constellation, as the viewing angle changes. It is only upon viewing the back of the brooch that the gems are fully revealed; in this way, the preciousness remains private.

The lamp itself is a slender steel structure supporting a pivoting cylindrical head that makes loose reference to optical instruments – such as scopes and camera lenses – and gives a nod to the repurposed flashlight of the original version. When the brooch is positioned into the lamp and the lamp is switched on, the sapphires, which are cut precisely to refract light internally, block light from passing through, while the empty holes allow the light to shine. The result is a projected silhouette formed not from light, but shadow — a creature made of darkness, surrounded by illuminated space.

A Bogong moth in my backyard

✿ What is your particular interest in the bogong moth?

Despite a few attempts to set up moth traps in my backyard, I rarely managed to actually lay eyes on any of the species I had studied for the Lux Nocturna exhibition. Despite citizen science assurance of their presence in my location, I had really only seen the hawk moth specimens through other people’s photographs.

I chose the Bogong moth primarily because it was much closer to home — quite literally. They are a nocturnal species I regularly encounter around my house, often fluttering out of freshly dried laundry, darting toward the safety of darkness. At first glance, they are very modest-looking— small, with dark grey-brown wings. But if you look closely, they have subtle yet distinct markings: they have a set of slightly paler splotches on each wing with what appears to me to be thin black thorns tucked underneath. Occasionally, the larger spots can resemble tiny love hearts. I find them beautiful in their understatement.\

…they are the ultimate emblem for quiet value and covert beauty

I think I was drawn to them because I felt a quiet affinity with them. Although the Bogong moth has gained prominence in its importance, both ecologically as well as culturally, to different groups for different reasons, for me, they are the ultimate emblem for quiet value and covert beauty.

✿ What was the most significant technical challenge in making the work?

I wouldn’t say there was one challenge that stood out above the rest. The entire process was a series of technical challenges. For me, that is just the nature of the game, that is the fun – solving the problems and meeting each challenge with the experience held in my body after all these years. Whether that is designing the pin system, piercing a steady line, drilling a thousand holes, cutting an M2 thread, hand-filing perfect circles, or colour grading hundreds of sapphires – these are the many and varied, yet consistent challenges presented by the hand-crafted object. My process rarely leaves anything to chance, so for me this work simply presents an expression of my craft. In that sense, every part of the making was a welcome challenge.

✿ What is the future of NOCTUA?

I already have ideas brewing for the next iteration of this interplay between macro and micro… creating large-scale projections from small-scale precious objects continues to offer rich creative ground for exploration.

As for NOCTUA itself, its future is out of my hands for now. The work is for sale, so I’ll simply have to wait and see whether or not it finds its way back home after the exhibition.

This new work is the winning entry for the MAKE Award – a national award presented by Australian Design Centre, celebrating innovation in contemporary craft and design.\

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Cinnamon Lee’s private studio is located on Dharawal land (Wollongong), on the south-eastern coast of Australia, where she single-handedly designs and makes all of her work.  Visit cinnamonlee.com and follow @cinnamon.lee

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G40 | insect | Sydney