Things often resonate with people is different ways. The
material that people interact with throughout their lives can trigger emotions
and memories, and can provide a point of access to share those emotions and
memories with others.
Kay Healy’s “Lost and Found” was a wall instillation at the
Free Library of Philadelphia that featured rooms with objects that the artist
made from people’s recollections of things that they once possessed but are now
lost. The people selected all have emotional stories that connect the thing
they have lost to their life and draw out larger lessons about concepts of
family and home. On one hand, asking people to talk about a lost thing they
wish they could still have is a set-up that required respondents to feel an
emotional attachment to their objects as a prerequisite for participation. On
the other hand, the lost and found motif is extraordinarily relatable and prompts
listeners to think about their things and what they would say if asked the same
question.
This American Life’s “House on Loon Lake” tells the story of
a young boy who broke into an abandoned home and became enthralled in the
mystery of the family that once lived there. Where Healy told the stories of
object that people longed for, this story was about one that people consciously
abandoned. The conclusions of this story, though sad, offered perspective on
how and why people sometimes choose to leave the past in the past, whereas
others, like the narrator or any of Healy’s interviewees desired to hold onto
it.
The Radio Lab episode “Things” more directly contemplates
the emotional connections people form with things. At one point in the episode,
the presenters discuss whether a 3D print of a sugar egg that resonates with
childhood memories means the same as the original. In the end, the process of
making a new egg with a child turned out to be more meaningful than a 3D print
could have been. Talking about the difference between things that have a
physical connection to people led to a discussion of what one presenter called
the “unbridgeable gulf” between people and the things that people make with
technology. This conversation highlighted the role of human imagination in
making things powerful. The ability to touch something and think about how
someone made it, what they did with it, and what it meant to them may be the
most important part of studying material culture.
Sam Roberts’ “Object Lessons in History” speculates about
the popular surge of object-based histories that the three previous works
arguably feed into. Acknowledging that material culture is a great way to lure
people into history, the article points to correlations between more recent
object histories and contemporary reality television. This link that Roberts
makes between momentary popular trends and object histories makes me think
about whether the relationships that people currently have with material things
are the same relationships that people in the past had with material things. How
would Kay Healy’s project be different if it revolved around people 500 years
ago, or 50 years from now?
Powder Horn Reflections: The works covered this week largely
had to do with how people look back upon things and how they use things to look back. The
powder horn, passed down through generations, could have been handled as
a vehicle for some story about the past that the family relayed to every succeeding
generation. Its owners could have looked at it in the same way Radio Lab’s
presenter looked at the Neil Armstrong letter and asked many of the same
questions. Thinking about that letter, the presenters wondered whether the
letter being typed instead of handwritten affected its meaning, if the emotional
connection to the letter would be the same even if Neil Armstrong never
actually touched the thing. For my powder horn, this is an integral question
because I have no proof yet that the horn ever belonged to General Braddock, nevertheless the care of the horn implies that it was important to the family.
Works Cited:
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