collection, collection

This work is a response to three particular artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Collection.  For me they represented the enchantment of repetition.  Rather than tooth or jaw, one sees detail in a repeated pattern: a temptation to look closely both at intricate individual and overall assembly. These artefacts also represent the act of collecting and display, and further are displayed within a museum founded on colonial collecting.  These objects are a collection of a collection, a display of a display. Using a collection of found coins, together with a fascination for repetition, collection, collection  is an investigation into what a modern wearable ‘collection’ piece might look and feel like.

The above is an extract from the ‘Distantly Relative’ exhibition which took place at The Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford in July 2014. The project involved selecting an artefact from the museum’s collection and create a ‘distant relative’ reflecting life today.  

While in the research stage of the project,  I was given a collection of coins which representedthe places the collector had travelled.  The coins were all in obsolete currency.  I decided I needed to make this collection wearable.  But just as each component of the artefacts were intricate and beautiful, so were the coins.  In fact, they were overpowering.  I made a holder which highlighted only a section of the coin, randomly shown according to how the coin slides into the holder.  I wanted the wearer to be able to choose to wear just one coin, or them all.  So each individual square holder snaps onto a button or clips over a pocket, or integrates into the larger leather carrier.

Some additional information about the exhibition can be found here:

http://www.rca.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/distantly-relative/

Photography Dominic Tschudin