Eloquent stories, written into personal objects
The article's first part explores selected
theoretical ideas, which observe material culture as a constitutive part of
man's life, and as the essential juncture of the personal and common. It
points out the importance of personified useful objects (clothes), which
may become memory objects of biographical value. The second part is based
on oral, object and pictorial sources, acquired through sustained research
into people's personal appearance and the related materializations of
choices, adventures and experiences, memories and discoveries. Stories
about objects, which participated in shaping past everyday practices and
the special nature of turning points in people's life, are actually
fragmentary stories about the lives of people telling their stories, and
their affiliations with other people. The article's aim is to draw
attention to the exceptional importance of a broad contextualization of the
world of objects, which researchers (and museum workers) observe, document,
collect, and interpret, even when our attention is directed towards more
abstract issues and wider socio-cultural phenomena. The article's first
part explores selected theoretical ideas, which observe material culture as
a constitutive part of man's life, and as the essential juncture of the
personal and common. It points out the importance of personified useful
objects (clothes), which may become memory objects of biographical value.
The second part is based on oral, object and pictorial sources, acquired
through sustained research into people's personal appearance and the
related materializations of choices, adventures and experiences, memories
and discoveries. Stories about objects, which participated in shaping past
everyday practices and the special nature of turning points in people's
life, are actually fragmentary stories about the lives of people telling
their stories, and their affiliations with other people. The article's aim
is to draw attention to the exceptional importance of a broad
contextualization of the world of objects, which researchers (and museum
workers) observe, document, collect, and interpret, even when our attention
is directed towards more abstract issues and wider socio-cultural
phenomena.