Replaced.

I have always been fascinated by the past or rather remnants of it. Stored in little cupboards and boxes, left in dark, musty attics. It has always been something that I appreciated. I enjoy tinkering hand me down film cameras with all its dents and scratches, dusting old vinyl albums from my mother's collection, going through yellowed pages of books and magazines, collecting old bills, makeup and trinkets. Back when the internet wasn't a big part of my life, I have never found this odd.

The attraction to the replaced, I have found was quite unusual later in life, having been saturated in popular culture and peer pressure. What pulled me in yet again was the surrealism of it all.

How can I draw nostalgia form things which I have not been born into or accustomed to and use them for escapism?


Precisely because it existed before me.

Most people escape to futures, futures where they would be more than who they are today. I on the other hand, leave for the past unknown to me. To culture left by people on tangible things. Through completely detaching myself to my current identity and reliving what might have been if I were there. These remnants of culture, tell narratives which they have lived through, each contributing to a shared reality that defines an era in society.

This idea of human mortality humbles me. It illustrates my insignificance with no one to tell my story but items left in storage slowly experiencing their own decay. These items will not die with me, but rather continue history intwined with another's whether it be to conquer foreign places or to sit in a cardboard box.

And it is because of this romanticization of human finiteness and the importance of a  tangible legacy that I cling to the promise of a past, that soon I will be handed on to the future.