Collected is an exploration into the cultural phenomena of collectors, collecting and collections.

The transgressive act of collecting places the collector between the Curator and the Hoarder, between reason and passion, between scholarship and curiosity: where both roles play/struggle with the articulation of boundaries, the completion of series, and the validation of their efforts.

Grounding theory and process contextually within interviews, I have created five framed drawings which explore and examine different modes of the collecting process: acquisition, display, organising and storage. Through these objects I hope to better understand the motivations and habits of collectors and the effects of their passions.

The first drawing is titled, Object where a slide is placed in one projector and another slide, from thirty years ago, is pushed and displayed through the projector at the other end. This was inspired by a quote from Tim the trainspotter: “There’s a group of four of us, we were all together at university, and we’ve sort of kept in contact through our common interest in railways, once a year we get together and what we do is we look at the pictures that we took, both during the previous year and thirty years ago.”

The second drawing is titled, Magnifying frame. This was inspired by an overheard conversation at Stampex: “The stranger things are more interesting, when compared to say the rarer stamps. All you can say about them is, well they’re rare. At least the strange stamps are interesting.”

The third drawing is titled, Room, wherein an object enters at the bottom and is taken to the top by means of a spiral conveyor belt. Here it is placed on a sloping shelf where it slides down for approximately ten seconds. The object then enters into the spiral conveyor room at the bottom again. This was inspired by Tony's collecting practice as an artist: “I don’t really look at this stuff, I put it into the bank, it’s in a storeroom, I’m not living with it really, so you put it over there and I visit it when I need to.”

The fourth drawing is titled, Buttons with Teddy Bears’ names on, which can be removed from the bear's ear and worn on the collectors clothes. This was inspired by Vi the teddy bear collector who tied the history and context of acquisition into the names she gave her bears: “I’ve got another World War one, now this is Siegfried, after Siegrfried Sassoon naturally. He is definitely World War, and he has a provenance and I bought him from one of the big auction houses, but his owner carried him all through the war in his top pocket of his jacket.”

The fifth drawing is titled: Storage system which allows the collector to represent their collection as larger than it may be through the use of empty boxes. This was inspired by Karen the Paul McCartney collector who liked to have an impressive collection:“My stuff is cool and I can honestly say that anyone who has ever come to any of my houses have been like, wide eyed and open mouthed, ‘Awwhhhh’.”