Thursday 21st October 2021- Proposal
- Kieran Collins
- Oct 18, 2021
- 4 min read
Introduction:
What is the Fate of Objects after a death? When a loved one dies, suddenly their personal belongings and defining possessions come to the foreground of consciousness- they are truly noticed. The death of a person reconstructs our experiences of personal and household objects in particular the ways there is the strangeness of realising that things that have outlived that person.
In regards the materiality of the thing is shown to be more permanent than the materiality of the body. Most of us live surrounded with objects that have once been owned before, objects that have traces of the death in the form of furniture, jewellery, clothing and other objects.
From my own experience of the bereavement from my nana Collins passing away in February 2011 and recently the passing of Tina Hicks (My partners mother) on November 11th, 2020 it has sprung questions about what happens to objects after their owners have passed? And also, can objects hold memory?
Project:
Certain objects, such as domestic objects and personal object evoke powerful memories within individuals. If memory is a performance of the past in the present, it is essential to account for the material world as a medium through which the performance of memory take place. “It is a material reality, moreover, that has become infused with an aura of ‘realness’ where perception is no longer a question of ‘seeing is believing’, but rather ‘touching is believing’. This shift in focus, from the performance of memory to its materiality” (Munteán, Plate and Smelik, 2017,p.4)
This project will be focusing on the relationships between memory and objects. I will be investigating how the material object has become infused with memory in the perception of ‘touching is believing’. By researching into the ways in which objects and things are endowed with meaning, I will be using a small aspect of my personal childhood memories to explore this. These memories which have taken place at my Nana Collins house (4 Heol Y cwm Caerphilly).
From my Nans death myself and my family have inherited personal objects of hers. From having these objects such as handbags, books, paintings, jewellery a piano and more. I am to recreate these memories from representing objects. By myself presenting the objects I will be investigating their significant value and also how memory can attach itself to them.
While undertaking last years writing task I have begun to write about these memories and objects. I have tried to describe the space where these objects were placed before and the relationships between them and their owner, for example I have written about both onion and beetroot jars that my nan would have placed out on Christmas; she would fill them with snacks. I now own these jars, but I have never used them in the same way as my nan used them.
Since undertaking the writing tasks, I have begun reading The meaning of thing Domestic symbols, By Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi & Eugene Rochberg-Halton, The afterlife of discarded objects- memory and forgetting in a culture of waste by Andrei Guruianu and Natalia Andrievskik and Objects of the dead mourning and memory in everyday life by Margaret Gibson. These books have given me a well-rounded knowledge about the relationships between objects, memories and their owners.
Questions that I must ask myself:
• Try to locate the memory. Where were you? What can you remember of your surroundings?
• When did it happen? If it is a childhood memory, do you know how old you were, or roughly how old?
• Were you alone when this incident or moment occurred, or with a brother or sister? Is this memory an 'I' memory or a 'we' memory?
• What other people were around at the time?
• What sensory impressions do you connect with it?
• Think about value.
Aims:
• The aim for this project is to focus on building a body of work that investigates the relationships between memories, objects and their owners. I aim to only focus on my personal memories and think about ways of how the audiences will encounter them.
Objectives:
• Firstly, I will be spending intimate time with each object by viewing them and try to describe how they feel.
• Secondly, I will Try to locate the memory by giving myself a set of questions/rules. From these questions/rules I will write down what objects have triggered a memory
• Thirdly, experiment in ways of how I can display the objects and text together, or having just text by itself?
• Fourthly, think about ways of how the audience will encounter and experience the work.
Mapping the field and sources – framing the work:
• Robert Therrien Objects and Stories
• Cornelia Parker
• Tracey Emin-May Dodge my Nan
• Heather Phillipson
• Gibson, M. (2008). Objects of the dead : [mourning and memory in everyday life]. Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press.
• Andrei Guruianu and Andrievskikh, N. (2019). The afterlife of discarded objects : memory and forgetting in a culture of waste. Anderson, South Carolina: Parlor Press.
• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Rochberg-Halton, E. (2002). The meaning of things : domestic symbols and the self. Cambridge England ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
Holland, L and Poulton, J. et al (2018) The Object Project. Available at: http://www.sitematerialobject.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&layout=item&id=7&Itemid=7
Bibliography:
Munteán, L., Plate, L. and Smelik, A., 2017. Materializing memory in art and popular culture. [Place of publication not identified]: Taylor & Francis.
Comments