Since 2055 Amsterdam had been an island due to rising sea levels. The city had become an independent offshore principality trading in illicit materials. Its tiny population had become incredibly rich due to this international trade in extinct animals parts, jewels and rare (but hazardous) chemicals. The brooch from this period represents an object that could no longer be made and thus had immense cultural and financial value.

Amsterdam 2068: The social backlash to the previous decades of decadence was led by a huge influx to the city of people fleeing the flooding landscapes of a rapidly shrinking Holland. These new residents arrived with a hard won understanding of the need to reorganise and redistribute diminishing resources and a growing antipathy towards the lavish and wasteful lifestyles of the existing Amsterdamer’s. The widespread riots of that year led to a mass ‘confiscation’ and destruction of jewellery and other high value but socially worthless items and the start of ‘The New Puritanism” movement that flourished in later part of the 21^st century.