My project revolves around evocative objects and the concept of sentimentality and nostalgia. With this project my aim was to explore personal narratives and values through objects, how objects speak to us through the memories that we associate with them.
The idea for this project sparked when I began thinking about pathetic fallacy and emotion tied to aspects of life. I then began thinking about nostalgia and how objects, places, smells and tastes can evoke certain emotions.
Thinking about my own personal experiences with things, I began to jot down aspects of my life that evoke emotion or spark nostalgia; for example lavender reminds me of home and of my mum, it is one of my Mum’s favourite smells, as it is mine, and we have a large lavender bush in the back garden, when it blooms over summer it is simply delightful. I thoroughly enjoy depicting emotion through my work; memories and experiences attached to inanimate things is a very interesting concept to me and something that presented as a challenge to illustrate in a captivating way.
I began my research into this by reading extracts of “Evocative Objects” by Sherry Turkle and “The Poetics of Space” by Gaston Bachelard. I found Sherry Turkle’s book very interesting, providing a detailed examination of personal objects with rich connections to daily life, providing a deeper understanding into sensory triggers and how we place emotion and memory into things.
“we live our lives in the middle of things. Material culture carries emotions and ideas of startling intensity. Recently, objects have begun to receive the attention they deserve”
- Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle’s book presents extracts from various individuals telling personal narratives they have tied to their objects; her book is sectioned off into objects of design and play, objects of discipline and desire, objects of history and exchange, objects of transition and passage, objects of mourning and memory, and objects of meditation and new vision. While this is a very interesting read, these aren’t the avenues I wanted to explore, Sherry Turkle’s book was a very useful reference for me and helped me further understand what makes an object evocative, however, I decided I wanted to focus more on the subject of nostalgia for this project.
Talking to family and friends about objects, places, smells, and tastes that were important to them (for any reason) strengthened my interest in the topic as my project began to take shape.
I constructed a survey of questions and handed them out, and the range of responses was just fantastic; I saw some that I felt I could really work with and create an illustrative space for the narrative there.
Initially, I wanted to explore the narratives within the survey responses through a range of creative processes, experimenting with collage, photography, and illustration. Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of COVID-19 and the University moving to online teaching, I had to revise my approach and tailor it to the restricted facilities I have at home. I had a range of survey responses from various individuals and my intention was to create a nostalgic space for these memories through my illustration, hopefully capturing the environment and surroundings that these specific objects create.
After experimenting with different approaches to varying themes of narrative, my objective was to identify which objects form a unified group with a shared theme or concept and focus in on that, refining my material down to a small selection and curating an e-book or zine from this.