Common Objects Workshops

The Common Objects workshops were created for the Devoorkamer Project (Utrecht, 2020) with the aim of creating new forms of connection between people at the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown. The workshops were developed as a methodology which was a direct continuation of my research around People's Objects. Held online, the workshops offered members of the De Voorkamer community an opportunity to meet new local residents at a very socially distant time through the exchange of their unique objects and stories.

The workshops were based on the idea that the objects we keep around us and carry as we move from place to place are a significant part of what makes us feel at home. These objects have the ability to catch our attention and remind us of different places, people and moments in time; but what activates this ability? During the COVID-19 lockdowns the objects that filled our homes became an even more significant part of our learning, working, and social environments.

At the beginning of the process, I invited each participant individually to meet with me at De Voorkamer and bring an object of personal significance. Before the objects were exchanged between participants, I took a photo of each of them holding their object in their hands in a manner that suited the object. 

I wrapped and tied them in cotton fabric. This created a moment of suspense, in which the objects were not yet in anyone’s possession. I traced each unique shape—covering it as if to protect it—and prepared it for its journey of temporarily becoming someone else’s.

For the last part of the workshop, participants filled the fabric with stories and thoughts they collected throughout the workshop. The wrapping of objects marked both the starting point and the end of these objects' journey. The project ended with a collection of the wrapped objects that was exhibited at Devoorkamer, which local residents could view from the street, alongside an online collection of the objects' stories.

Through creative exercises of storytelling and drawing in both group and one-on-one meetings, participants exchanged objects and stories and experienced how objects become active in our lives—shaping and changing us, capturing our memories and emotions, and allowing us to form new connections with people and places.

Esther loves bringing back “random objects” from her journeys. She bought this rolling pin while traveling to Uganda because she had eaten a lot of rolex there. The chapatis used to wrap the eggs in rolex are made with rolling pins like this one. It had been tucked away in a cupboard until she rediscovered it during a recent move. Esther’s object brought me back to my own trip to Uganda. Since our conversation, I’ve been thinking about it often, and memories have started to resurface. It’s beautiful to see how this object connects to one I keep in my own home—a souvenir from the same place that keeps the smell of cooking and baking, the softness of dough.

Ana’s object is a wooden bird. It’s small, smooth, and, interestingly, has no visible wings. Ana believes it does have wings—they’re just tucked tightly against its body, or perhaps the bird’s swift movement keeps them close. She told me the bird was handcrafted in Slovenia by a local artisan and given to her by her boyfriend’s mother. It collected memories of encounters—some of them unwanted, which have slightly clouded the bird’s naïve sense of nostalgia. Ana prefers to leave those aside. But, like it or not, our memories linger, adding layers of complexity to our world. I enjoyed holding the bird in my temporary room. I don’t have many belongings with me—like Ana and her bird, I’ve been moving around a lot lately. I try not to acquire new things, knowing I’ll have to take everything back home soon. So having the bird nearby was refreshing—something new to hold, to look at, to think with—before I move on again.