The Stories Objects Tell
An exploration of how ordinary objects carry memories, emotions, and connections to people and places, revealing the stories hidden within everyday possessions.
This writing is adapted from my 2024 Master's thesis in Design (Visual Communication) at the University of Bergen, Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design.
I recently moved to another country for my studies, and it is my first time living in another city besides my hometown. While getting ready to move and booking the ticket, there was the challenge of deciding what to bring along. The question was in the back of my mind for months. Whenever I used or looked at an object I owned, there was the question of whether I would carry this object with me to the other side of the world. I booked two check-in suitcases which could not exceed 23 kilograms. From every single object that I own, there was a selection to be made, 46 kilograms of carefully chosen items. What would I need from my old life to start a new one?
Subconsciously, I constantly evaluated this question. It was challenging to decide what should I take with me, but harder to make up my mind about what to leave behind. It felt like an act of relinquishing the ownership of my personal items. This process resulted in a few pages of lists of objects. Lists with a lot of objects, some having been crosses out, some circled or highlighted, some with question marks beside them, and different symbols and footnotes evaluating each of them.
Even the list became a personal thing that I carried around with me wherever I went. Every conversation and every experience had its effect on it. It became a representation of myself to some degree, a testament of what I was experiencing at that time. Having a coffee and saying goodbye to a friend resulted in adding a new object or striking out another.
Another phenomenon occurred during the process of identification and categorization. These objects seemed to become a representation of a range of different persons, spaces and times, meaning they gained their value by proxy through the emotional attachment associated with, for instance, family, friends, neighborhoods, places or occurrences. Their common factor was the fact that these items became an embodiment of connections and memories that I would not have access to after moving, due to limitations of time and distance. In some ways, they represent a loss of connection and closeness. The sentimentality and attachment I ascribed to these objects is therefore directly mirroring both the attachment and regard felt towards people close to me and my home, and reflecting the desire to preserve access, embody and recollect those memories.
For instance, this category included a spoon that my grandmother used to add to my lunch package to eat the porridge with that she made for me every day to take to work. At the time, the spoon did not have any sort of value. It was in the drawer along with all the other cutleries. Back then, I could visit my grandparents whenever I wanted. However, after moving, the long distance between me and them made that spoon increase in value, because it became a representation of persons, space and time that are inaccessible. This vessel of connection to certain people, spaces and time was the underlying essence of all these objects.
If spoons can be seen as relics, carrying testaments of both their timely, historical, and social context, as well as their owners, what would be retraceable about me after I left? The items in this category ended up being separated into boxes according to function, my name was put on them and they were left to gather dust in my parents’ basement. What stories would they tell about who I was? Would anyone, perhaps some years from now, be able to trace stories from whatever they find in there? Someone in my family might inherit them, or they will be donated or thrown away. How would anyone viewing these objects depict me as their owner? Are these things only a representation of the context and time I lived in, or can one detect something personal about me? Do these objects hint at some sort of identity? And if so, can they be separated from my person? After all, having lived far away from them for two years, they have been replaced.
Among others, these questions not only fed my curiosity about my personal relation to daily objects, but the worlds of information that objects can hold. How can these vessels be used in storytelling?
