Artifacts that are personally relevant are quite distinct from those that are relevant to a wider range of people. Some objects, however, may hold extreme significance to an individual while also evoking a broader class of objects to which a number of people are attached. This work explores this tension between personal and universal through the practice of collage – both physical and with the aid of a camera. The work ultimately brings together a number of images and objects in order to create a space of memory that is made visible through the act of creating lists, writing descriptions, fixing objects in a specific relationship, photographing, and collaging. The work includes a book, a set of panels, and a set of large format prints. The objects collaged range in personal significance, exploring how one's own collection of meaningful objects and images mingle with those meaningful to a broad group of people in order to form a unique image of how one fits within the broader image of the world. It is also important to understand this work as a confrontation with what luxury means – both as represented on the pages of elite media and as a lived experience that I have been fortunate enough to call mine. This occurs through the direct interrogation of the traces of this experience of reading and living – holding them up to the light for all to inspect and, if they choose, pass judgment on. At the time of making this work, I felt quite attached to this lifestyle, even if I was living at the margins as an artist. Holding up the material condition to the light was the beginning of my broader attempt to let go of this experience and leave whatever art object that results as ultimately the only real thing of significance.
