Closet and Cabinet: Clutter as Cosmology

ABSTRACT

In Central Slovakia, homes “grow” and get cluttered with age. Cabinets and closets are used to house this profusion of possessions. However, their very role as containers for precious and meaningful objects—such as expensive cut glass or family heirlooms—gives them a poetic and symbolic weight that belies their modest appearance. Based on anthropological fieldwork, this article investigates how practices of collection, storage, and display of particular genres of domestic objects create spaces of intimacy in the home that work to perpetuate a sense of family history amongst middle-aged Slovaks in and around the provincial town of Banská Bystrica. Inspired by the historiography of Walter Benjamin, as well as his biographical writings, the focus of the study lies on the relation between memory and material culture in the home. Rather than relying on narratives of consumption and aesthetic choice recently popular amongst anthropologists studying domestic decor, it forms an attempt to reengage with literature that looks to the home as a site for the poetic imagination in order to grasp sentiments that are rarely verbalized.

KEYWORDS:

• Decor
• Kinship
• Cosmology
• Walter Benjamin