Collections
Sunday
Jul312011

What isn’t a collection? 

by Professor Martin Parker

A few weeks ago, I was told a story about a man who had hoarded so much stuff that he had to travel around crawling at ceiling level in his house, on top of the piles of bags, boxes, newspapers, suitcases. It was sad, and the person who told me was a police officer. The police had been called to the council house by social services because of worries about the tenant. He was rarely seen, and neighbours assumed he might have died. They didn’t like the smell either.

Hoarding is collecting in its simplest form, but it draws our attention to the logic that makes a collection into a collection and not merely a random pile of stuff. If I proudly showed you a pile of newspapers, boxes, bin bags, old household appliances and rotting food it would be an indicator of a socially discouraged form of obsession, a kind of madness, and you might feel justified in calling the police. But if I showed you my collection of Sunday newspapers, my collection of 1950s cardboard boxes, my collection of plastic bin bags, you might think me odd, but merely a collector. A hoard has no logic. Collections have a logic, and it is this that staves off madness. Most of the items in a hoard could themselves become part of collections  if they were arranged on some axis of similarity. Old food cartons, combs, pornographic magazines, bottles, snow globes, airline sick bags – they are all collectable. So the distinctiveness of a collection is the relations between objects, and not the objects themselves.

This is an odd assertion, because of course most collectors would assert that the things themselves are what matter. They are right, from the point of view of the collector, but what commonly prevents us from thinking of collectors as mad people is this simple assertion of relations. ”This is like that.” This ashtray shaped like a tyre is like that ashtray shaped like a tyre. It might be eccentric to collect such things, but it is comprehensible. And, for the rational collector, this also means that there are things that they do not collect. A pen, which does not fit into a collection of pencils. A 1960 cardboard box. A brush. A drink carton. All not collected, and therefore important for maintaining the logic of a collection. Again, it is the relations that are important here. Both between the things that are collected and between those things and other things that are not present, and hence maintain the integrity of the collection.

There are some outer limits to this relational logic. You can’t collect things that rot or need feeding. A collection of guinea pigs isn’t really allowed, or a collection of old kebabs. Neither can one or two things be a collection. A collection has to have at least three items. Beyond that, anything material can be collected and be made into an arrangement that can be socially valued, and not merely an indicator of mental distress that will have your neighbours calling the police.

 

Martin Parker is Professor of Organisation Studies in the is Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick

DateSunday, July 31, 2011 AuthorGraham | CommentPost a Comment | Tweet
Wednesday
Jul202011

Thoughts on collecting from a trends perspective

by Francesca Muston 

 

The notion of collecting is as interesting from a consumer attitude point of view as the collection is from an aesthetic viewpoint. At a consumer level what’s really interesting right now is that affect that multiple media channels are having on our lifestyles. We’ve been talking about digital overload for years but right now it’s really starting to hit home. The constant barrage of information is giving us a very wide yet increasingly shallow knowledge base – in short we’re becoming Jacks of all trades and masters of none. The practice of collecting and crucially curating has new relevance in this chaotic consumer landscape. Firstly it allows us to develop a niche, even if it’s something quite personal and private. But also it offers an opportunity to filter and to focus.

As we step up our intake of information the ability to filter is critical for our sanity as much as anything else. The search engine is king in the online world. We want to cut through the crap and hone in on the specifics and the more specific the better. I have a lot of experience working as a fashion taxonomist where I fastidiously categorise fashion products across dimensions from fabrics to necklines. The key to this work is to streamline the user experience to deliver the expected results. I’m unsure quite how I’ve managed to turn a job which on paper is really very glamorous into something which is quite so geeky.

Collections appeal to this sense of order amidst chaos. There is something calming and satisfying about everything sitting in neat little boxes. The process itself has a slow, long-hand approach which is an antidote to the speed at which we are all now forced to move. Of course the internet search engines must have revolutionised the art of collecting but I’m sure bidding on an item generated by a search engine is a little like cheating. The true collector must revel in process of the search as much as the find so buying on ebay probably feels a little dirty. It’s those discoveries at the bottom of a box in a car boot sale which must really get the heart racing.

From a display point of view collections are hugely inspirational. I once visited an exhibition at the MOMA of Chinese artist Song Dong which was truly amazing. His mother was suffering from compulsive hoarding and in order to help her get over it he turned all of her possessions into an exhibition. The tiny house where she lived formed the centre piece and around it he had (helped by this mother) methodically arranged all of her ‘collections’. Everything from clothes and shoes to empty toothpaste tubes and yoghurt pots was laid out or stacked up. At the same time I was photographing the store windows in New York and I could see the visual merchandisers from Barneys and Calvin Klein to Banana Republic had visited this exhibition and arranged their merchandise in the same methodical manner. The obsessive nature of this kind of display adds value to the product by lavishing it with such consideration and attention, even if it is an old bottle top.

The process of collecting is also hugely relevant for retailers. Bricks and mortar retailers have to fight for every pound against online sales. Their main advantage is the tactile experience of visiting a store. I recently wrote a feature (attached) about foraging and how this can be translated in-store. The journey of discovery adds a new dimension to the shopping experience turner shoppers into hunter gatherers and imbuing each purchase with the sense of triumph. I have a book called Picnic Boxes (purchased from The Museum der Dinge in Berlin, a must-see for all self-respecting collectors). The book is essentially filled with retro picnic boxes but what’s interesting is the anecdotal descriptions of where each one came from, the sense of history from the mundane “I found it by the side of the road” to the sublime “we took it on a road trip for our honeymoon”.

From a trends perspective the ability to capture the thrill of the chase which drives a collector along with the meticulous categorisation and display of the final articles, and the accompanying narrative and sense of history make the obsession of collecting an inspiration with true relevance.

 

Francesca leads the key product analysis team and What’s in Store directory, specialising in confirming and translating inspirational trend directions for the global trends forecasting comapny WGSN.

DateWednesday, July 20, 2011 AuthorHelen | CommentPost a Comment | Tweet
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