This piece is part of the Royal College of Art Visiting Artists Collection. Every year from 1987 to 2006, while David Watkins was Professor of Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery at the RCA, he invited four jewellers and silversmiths from outside Britain to give a week-long masterclass. The artists brought diverse skills, aesthetics and approaches. The first call on their time was to interact closely with the students. In addition, although concentrating on their teaching and working in an unfamiliar studio, each artist generously made an object for the RCA's collection. The Royal College of Art Visiting Artists Collection, now transferred to the V&A, is a major document of international contemporary jewellery, a tribute both to the artists and to the vibrancy of the RCA as a teaching institution.

In the 20th century artists began to make works of art with 'found objects'. Jewellers followed this tradition, or even took it a step further, by recycling materials to make entirely new creations. With today's consciousness of global warming and the need to use sustainable materials the jeweller of the future will undoubtedly engage more with recyclables.

The Australian jeweller Susan Cohn chooses to integrate everyday 'found objects', such as sunglasses, to create jewellery with a critical outlook on our society, contemporary life and ecological concerns. Are the sunglasses here reflecting a dark vision of the world?

She trained as a graphic designer, before graduating in gold- and silversmithing at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1980. In that year Cohn founded workshop 3000 in Melbourne, which she runs today as her jewellery production workshop. She has also made designs for the Italian manufacturer Alessi. Cohn is versatile in her approach, as she is equally engaged in gallery art installations, which tend to be provocative and experimental. Technologies, either electronic, digital or medical are influential in her work, as are street culture and cyberspace.