When looking for objects that could exist within the realm of personal and public histories, I first started with myself before branching out and looking for objects around me. I, like most people have accumulated a highly specific and selective curation of objects that holds immense personal value and significance. Postage stamps, old letters, ticket and movie stubs, jewelry, airplane tickets, sweaters, a travel size toothpaste tube, an empty bottle of expired perfume. The most mundane of objects serve as extensions of our own identities and are able to act as physical cues for memories, experiences and personal associations. I accumulated more objects than I initially needed, looking even in the most unexpected of places. I looked for objects that were clearly personal objects that held public meaning and vice versa; objects that were able to have both personal and public meaning separately and together. The hardest part had to be culling through all the object and deciding how they all worked together collectively but also individually. All the objects collected exist on the abridging spectrum between singular and shared experiences serving as tangible and physical markers of significant events and people. All the artifacts share themes of searching for belonging and document different ideas of what a home is concerning who we are and where we are. While some of the objects are more functional devices and others are adornment or aesthetic objects, they all assume a new identity through the projected memory that they are tasked with preserving.
