Knick Knacks and Doodads are Autobiographical
/ Abstract
/ Introduction
/ Contextual Review
/ Attachments to Objects
/ Storytelling in Objects
/ Digitalisation of Collections
/ Methods Overview
/ Memory Objectification
/ Conclusion
/ Bibliography
Everyone has a collection of something; scrapbooks, letters, photos of loved ones or a shelf full of pretty trinkets that can seem to have no use or benefit. These all exist as personal collections of objects with bestowed value, like the ones in museums and can represent memories, connections, and experiences. Technology continues to grow further embedded in society’s systems and lifestyles making valued objects become more technologically based due to financial components and less due to sentimental connections within analogue technologies like photo albums and scrapbooks. What museum in the future will be valued if it’s all full of the same screens? As time passes, analogue technologies may slowly lose their place in the world as an unbalanced, fast paced, and overconsuming technological future looms. It could lead to society becoming less sentimental, thoughtful, and observant to create memories or appreciate the beauty in the simplicity of analogue methodologies.
Put down your devices and make memories!
Find that object in place of that experience and make your personal collection!
Become the makers of the next generations’ museums and archival collections!
I’d consider myself a collector of sentimentalities, a curator of life events, a keeper of connections through objects… or maybe it’s just emotionally trinket hoarding as I have lost a few people in life, due to time or distance so as a creative empathetic person, it’s hard not to see parts of them amongst other things. Whatever you want to paint it as, memories are a personal collection just like objects. My distinct childhood memories with my two younger sisters include sitting down at the large ‘craft table’, each determined to make something cool to show our parents and grandparents. But I’m not able to see as much family as I used to anymore. Health and their choosing of different life paths have impacted my connections with family more than ever. Reflecting on the memories of moments we use to share and how it used to be between all of us, I find myself wishing I could put it all in a jar that I can relive at any moment. This is why I still have random objects from my childhood that no longer work or fit. Backed by my own sentimentalities to objects and memories, I aim to impact audiences, so they reflect and remember to value their own loved ones in life’s moments and that valuing your relationships are vital as nothing lasts forever.
Guided by the research question, ‘How might I visualise personal collections of objects to highlight the importance of valuing human connections, emotional relationships and memories?’, with a comparative precedent analysis and studio experimentations, this paper argues the importance to collections of personal objects curated by memory objectification, storytelling, and sentimentalities to highlight the valuing of human connections and emotional relationships.
By comparing Leanne Shapton’s ‘Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry’ Publication, Megan Wong’s ‘Tracing After Lives’ project, Mark Menjivar’s ‘Refrigerator/You are what you eat’ photography series and George Legrady’s ‘Pocket Full of Memories’ interactive installation, with support of scholarly perspectives of sentimental value, memory linkage and object attachments from Sandra H Dudley & Susan M Pearce, Kirara Nagatsuka & Valerie Manusov, Gregory V Jones & Maryanne Martin and Marya Schechtman, the research paper’s argument opens up opportunities for discussion and reflection. Utilising analogue methods of data gathering through workshops as practice introduced by Thea Kable paired with technology led data gathering though google forms, this research project combines analogue and technological methodologies to develop a user experience to communicate the proposed argument.
2