New Project Idea - Collecting

My idea for my new project is about collecting, and the human aspects of instinctively gathering objects that we feel drawn to. The overarching themes will be sentimentality, nostalgia, and the notion of trash vs treasure, and I will look at artists like Mike Kelley and Andy Holden to support my ideas.

I often find myself building different collections, where I become infatuated with a particular thing and gather lots of variations of it. Some objects are found and collected on walks, while others are bought, usually second hand. There's something energising to me about finding a new addition to a collection and that is my main motivation for exploring collecting through art. The main things I want to work initially with are my found pieces of broken ceramics, mostly from beach combing, and I have a lot of sea-glass too. The ceramics offer a range of fragmented patterns while the glass collection has a huge spectrum of greens and different shapes. 

As I outlined already, my objects can be classified by bought or found - but there are many other avenues in terms of grouping and arranging things, such as type, colour, age, shape, etc, so I have a lot of options if I want to display or photograph my collections. Another thing to consider is what makes something collectible, and where does its value lie. I find this difficult to answer because of the subjectivity, but maybe by making art about it I will start to get more insight and understanding.


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