Unpolishing the Gemstone

Throughout the millennia, gemstones have been desired, exchanged and collected for their mythical properties. Daatje Noot’s documentary is about the contradictions of these commodified symbols of wellbeing and healing. The film follows the gemstone’s journey backwards, starting with the appreciative consumer, through the clandestine supply chain, to ecologically devastating extraction and mining processes. Interviews with shop owners, a gemstone trader, a geologist and a journalist, as well as photographs from the French National Archive and the Hudson Institute of Mineralogy, are included. Since the field remains obscure, design is used as a tool to explore new perspectives, and show the levels of certainty and uncertainty.