TEN THINGS THAT ARE VERY IMPORTANT TO ME

1. MY OLD PHOTO COLLECTION

I love collecting and taking photographs more than pretty much anything. I have been collecting for years and before that I used photographs in the normal way that everyone does - as reminders of people who are not there, as proof that we were once in a certain place, as a way of seeing the parts of the world that are not accessible to us, and all the other ways that photographs can be used. I love photographs. This picture represents about one fiftieth of the amount of photographs that I actually have. I particularly enjoy collecting photographs from a long time ago. Susan Sontag says that photographs are both "pseudo-presences and tokens of absence". I like the idea of experiencing things that I wasn't around for through these tiny, carefully chosen slices of the past.





2. OLD PHONE

This phone is special to me for several reasons. First of all, it comes from my early adolescent years just before I was allowed a cellphone and reminds me of really different times. It also holds a special sentiment because a phone will probably never be as important to you again as it was when you were a fourteen year old girl! At that point in life, a phone seems like a lifeline to everything important. I also keep it around because it's been years since I haven't spoken to anyone I used to talk to so much on that phones. Its is a small token of people that moved out of my life as I got older.





3. OLD COUCH

This is a beautiful old couch that my great aunt Doris gave to me. I love it because it is something I remember in a completely different context from my childhood - as a couch I had to sit stiffly in while wearing my best clothes when I visited my mildly frightening great aunt - and now it has revived itself in a much more casual context in my apartment as something that my friends hang out around when they come over.




4. PAPIER MACHE OCTOPUS

Someone I love a lot made this octopus for me. There is a very long and meaningful explanation for why someone would make me this strange little octopus as a gift.






5. SHOE COLLECTION

This is my shoe collection. I have been hoarding shoes since I was about fifteen and my feet stopped growing. Shoes are just utilitarian objects for a lot of people, but I can track different stages of my life by which pairs of shoes I liked to wear. I never get rid of any shoes because I always end up coming back to them.





6. MY CAMERAS

My cameras are probably my favourite belongings. Some of them are from high school and earlier and some of them are more recent acquisitions. I love photographs, but I particularly love producing them myself. I love the possibilities involved in taking a photograph and the element of chance. I use a camera almost every single day.




7. MY OLD TYPEWRITER



8. MY COLLECTION OF FOUND SLIDES

There are a lot of strange things in this slide collection, There is a wedding that takes place in China in the 60's I think, there is a 1970's thanksgiving day parade in New York, and all of these things are from a fairly specific timeframe because they are all captured on the same brand of kodak slides. There is a nostalgia in the colouring and often in the choice of subject matter. I also find it interesting how these whole collections of carefully taken chosen slides have been discarded because the technoglogy became obsolete.



9. MY MOTHER'S TOY

This monkey toy belonged to my mother when she was small. It's amazing because it is one of those toys that used to be normal for children but comes off as incredibly creepy now in a really charming sort of way. It's probably too simple for a child to enjoy now. It also reminds me of everything that my mother has been through since she was young enough to enjoy this mechanical monkey.



10. MY BOOKS

I think I would be really different if I hadn't read all these books. I also love books as objects.