Here, indeed, lies the whole miracle of collecting. For it is invariably oneself that one collects.Footnote1
Perhaps the most deeply hidden motive of the person who collects can be described this way: he takes up the struggle against dispersion. Right from the start, the great collector is struck by the confusion, by the scatter, in which the things of the world are found.Footnote2
The interior is a repository for collections, whether curated as a body of work for a museum or the personal possessions of an individual. Collections can be thematic, nostalgic, scientific, artificial and natural, ranging in scale from large to small, physical to ephemeral, critical or superfluous, from the obviously curated to seemingly random. Collections convey knowledge of heritage, culture, society and evolution, protecting specimens and objects of material culture for generations to view. They allow for comparison between objects and create relationships between them where there were none. These can be viewed in large institutional museums that have not been without contention with works pilfered from original sites. In juxtaposition, everyday objects are celebrated and curated in unexpected locations such as the MmuseumM housed in a converted elevator shaft. As subject matter, collections can range from decorative to the obsessive, or challenge conventions to curatorial statements about truth and fiction as found in the Museum of Jurassic Technology. The interior is the site for collections which are given a descriptive and physical framework through the lens of curators, exhibition designers, interior designers and architects who set the stage for objects and viewers.
This issue of Interiors: Design/Architecture/Culture is the first of two issues (a collection in itself) on the topic of collections. This issue includes essays, design work, visual collections, musings and alternative interpretations to collections, all the while situating them within the broader context of interiors.
Notes
1 Jean Baudrillard, “The Systems of Collecting”, in Cultures of Collecting, edited by John Elsner, Roger Cardinal (Reaktion Books, London, 1994), p.12.
2 Walter Benjamin, “The Collector”, in The Arcades Project (Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 211.