Fossils of our existence

Dentures. Notes. Receipts. Pens. Spoons. Shoes. Cameras. Cigarette Tins. Tazos. Stuffed toys. Hub caps. Cats. Napkins. Soaps. Felts. Rubbers. Corks. Horns. Crayons. Clocks. Clocks everywhere ticking. Ticking everywhere. Dissonant polyrhythms of distant lands and stories flourished with alarms of small victories and worries. My Grandma’s cottage. It is the accumulation of a lifetime of experience and knowledge. She collects clocks, and lots of them. Each of their stories crowd my childhood whilst their ticking provide a solid backdrop of trust and warmth within my Grandmother’s words. Clocks shaped life cats, Australia, and my favourite, one shaped as a house with a 1950’s teenager who always seems to be happy bobbling from it’s underbelly on an innocent looking swing. These clocks seem to have some sort of magical aura attatched to them as, despite the age and vulnerability of my grandparents, they don’t seem to be harmed by the harsh realities of living in the rough suburbs of Melbourne. They seem to be cosied by these clocks as they remind them of what they have. Their life. Their friendship. Their love.

These memories made me think about the real reason as to why people collect things. Often objects that are useless and seem irrelevant to our busy lifestyles. But through a simple story, a tobacco tin is transformed into a bountiful treasure chest which tells of a mutinied voyage through the Greek Isles. They are physical fragments of our imagination. Fossils of our existence.