Notes on collections: display and memory

I have been thinking about the way seemingly ordinary objects, can have personal value imbued into them by the way they are collected, thought about or displayed, and the way we read that display or collection. This happens in a more formal way in public spaces such as museums, galleries or shops, but it can also happen in domestic spaces. On shelves, or mantle pieces, cabinets or tables - objects, souvenirs, mementos telling a story about an individuals life. Yet while some things are proudly displayed, others are hidden away and never seen, stored in cupboards and boxes, in the attic or under the bed - collections locked away, preserving the physicality of our memories from the past.

I linked these thoughts to these quotes:
'The cupboard seems to have had a near mythical importance to Russian communal apartment-dwellers. It was the most prized piece of furniture, serving at once the contradictory desires for privacy and display that the apartment itself, with its flimsy partitions and drab decor, could never satisfy. The carefully arranged treasures in Lyuba's cupboard included: a plastic apple - a souvenir of her native village in Belarus - a Chinese thermus flask decorated with a floral design, a porcelain dog, some artificial flowers, a samovar and a set of folk style porcelain cups.' (Travis, T. 2000. 'Things with Souls The Object in Late Soviet Culture'. In: Things 12 Summer 2000. page 38)

'...collecting can be seen as an ongoing attempt to cope with the fact that time goes by.' (Winzen, M. 1998. Deep Storage. Prestel - Verlag. Page 22)

' As Stefan Hoderlein says, 'time is constantly being lost, but we can keep, store or retrospectively appropriate or invent photographs, traces, documents, and memories'.' (Winzen, M. 1998. Deep Storage. Prestel - Verlag. Page 22)