Idea Blog - Collection

Collection:

1. the act or process of collecting

2. something collected

"The collection's space must move between the public and the private, between display and hiding. Thus the miniature is suitable as an item of collection because it is sized for individual consumption at the same time its surplus of detail connotes infinity and distance. While we can "see" the entire collection, we cannot possibly "see" each of its elements. We thereby also find at work here the play between identity and difference which characterizes the collection organized in accordance with qualities of the objects themselves. To group objects in a series because they are "the same" is to simultaneously signify their difference. In the collection, the more the objects are similar, the more imperative it is that we make gestures to distinguish them."

(Stewart, Susan. "Objects of Desire, Inside and Outside." On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984. 155. Print.)

The reason that I have chosen the word "collection" is because my series is like a collection. I have photographed similar things that I have found in the houses and tend to group them together. Also the series itself being a collection of collections. The things that I find in the houses that I go into are collections of the things that are left behind. The objects found tell a story about the people that once lived there. But like Stewart said we cannot see each of the elements. Therefore, we will never know that whole story. Since we will never know the whole story of the people and their objects the collection that I am making of the photographs of the collections people will never know my whole story of the journey.

Bibliography:

Stewart, Susan. On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1984. Print.