I collect a lot. I do not have space for all I'd like to collect. Since I dont have an art studio, from time to time I have to part with things and accept they won't become that project I've been imagining for years. But every now and then, something I collected for years becomes incredibly useful in a creation or assemblage. Those make worth all the space-killing collections still taking place in my spaces.
"The things we keep and arrange become part of our environment, identity, and how we communicate with the world, both as individuals and as societies. Collecting is a deeply meaning-making activity: it weaves memories and longing into the everyday spaces we inhabit.
Objects connect us to the past. German existential philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that they are not just things, but heritage:
According to Heidegger, human agents are ‘thrown’ out of a past, into the present, as they project a future. In a sense, the human agent is ‘in’ all three dimensions of time at once. In Heidegger’s terms, it is impossible for any of us to invent our life from scratch. Past objects have meaning for us today only because the past surrounds us as our heritage.
In a nutshell: Even the most mundane object (an old concert ticket, a pencil eraser) matters if it tells a story or sparks a memory."
