In the words of Sherry Turkle in her book Evocative Objects, “Most objects exert their holding power because of the particular moment and circumstance in which they come into the author’s life.”
The box is an object that serves as an archive of my life. It holds the most important objects that I have collected over the years. They tether me the memories of these particular moments and circumstances for which I never want to forget.
Old photographs, wrinkled ticket stubs, thoughtful birthday cards, crumpled love letters, dirty wristbands, worn friendship bracelets; the objects that make up my life. What a better place to store them than a box that was given to me as a gift with other objects inside of it. When I open this box, I am sent into an instant state of nostalgia. This box serves as a treasure box of my memories. In touching and looking at each of these objects, they evoke a particular memory for which I hope I never forget. That is the power objects have––to serve as a treasure trove of our most precious memories and conjure up emotions from the time in which we received the object.
When photographing this object, I wanted to start by showing the simplicity of the box. I used grass as the background because the green contrasted well with the peoples and pinks of the box, and I thought the texture of the grass made a nice three dimensional background. The grass has a clover-esque feel to it, which I think adds more symbolism to my box, and how I’ve kept many lucky items in there.
When the box is closed, it just looks like any ordinary box, with the exception of the lid, which has beautiful colors and designs, a three dimensional butterfly, and a small label with my name on it. I wanted to show this in one of the photographs because the design of the box is one of the reasons I decided to keep it in the first place, and use it as a place to store my most treasured trinkets.
I also wanted to show the box open, as it allows the viewer to see that it is full, but you can’t see exactly everything inside of it. I wanted to keep this level of secrecy I have with the contents of the box in the last photo with some of the objects spread out. The viewer can see cards, letters, invitations, stickers, photographs–but they can’t see everything. This is supposed to imitate how there are some objects in the box that are only meant for my eyes and viewing because they contain memories that might only be important to me, or that are special to me, and only me.
Taking the time to photograph this object, filled with ample more objects, made me realize how many things I have kept over the years. I must be a sentimental person for the amount of seemingly unimportant items in the box, that once I look at arouse a multitude of memories and emotions. I am glad that I have kept everything in here, as they hold anecdotes that remind me of who I am and how I got here.