OPEN HOUSE - Key Persons
Designer/illustrator Emily Okada and photographer Corey Vaughn have also compiled their possessions into a website, Every Little Everything. For every month in 2015, they documented objects, experimenting with their chosen mediums, and wrote about their importance. Their goal was to get rid of everything undocumented by January 1st, 2016, but it seems they only made it through September and it is unclear what the final result was.
Job Titles:
- European Designer / Developers
European designer/developers Manuel Moreale and Mattia Compagnucci are going even slower with their site DeOwnIt, aiming to add one meaningful object each week, and in turn, get rid of one object behind the scenes. Like Okada and Vaughn, they combine visuals and writing but in a more lo-fi way, photographing on wood with what I would guess is, an iPhone. Their captions also explore memories and importance, but more in-depth. And on their site, it is easier to compare and contrast the two's objects and personalities because they are placed side by side.
After compiling them into the website, Mattingly's objects become performative actions. She ties and makes giant bundles out of them, and in some cases, rolls them across bridges. The density of the bundles makes it difficult to move them, but doing so celebrates and critiques their journeys, from source material to final product, into Mattingly's life.
Job Titles:
- Material World: a Global Family Portrait, 1995
Peter Menzel also photographed families with everything they owned-including their homes and land-across the world. Menzel brought together 16 photojournalists to publish Material World: A Global Family Portrait in 1995, capturing life in 30 nations. Comparing Menzels' photographs is ultimately a comparison of culture, values, and economy. And, coming from the 90s, a comparison to ownership today.
Unlike Kvist and Menzel, Brooklyn artist Mary Mattingly is looking at her own objects. On the site own-it.us, Mattingly categorizes, photographs, and 3D scans each object she owns and writes about the material history of each, feeling consumers have responsibility over the effect their possessions have on the world. On the about page she states, "Researching each item's history is a way to begin an extended funeral prayer, illuminating rituals and tragedies embedded in objects in a precarious world. From the over-extraction of the earth, to the working conditions of the makers and distributors, to the chemicals that enter the air and water affecting everyone, each object is embedded with trauma."
was one of the first I found. In 2012, she asked students born in the 80s, herself included, to build a sculpture inside their rooms using everything they owned and pose with them in a series dubbed All I Own. The photographs show the different personalities and interests of the subjects-some with stacks of books, others with clothes or music-by way of what they own. Because she left the sculpture making up to the owners, they were able to skew the perspective so that some objects were more prominent than others, and hide those they didn't want seen. Kvist's purpose is also to show how little the millennials own, due to the fact that they usually rent and are therefore constantly moving.
Taylor Simpson is a Graphic Design '17 BFA graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. Her main interests are branding, motion graphics, UI/UX design, coding, and writing. View her work at taylorannsimpson.com.