Slovenski etnografski muzej

Perfume bottle and half empty cigarette case
Datum objave 
24. March 2020
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Perfume bottle and half empty cigarette case

When functional objects lose their practical meaning, they can become a materialised souvenir filled with warm feelings.

The perfume bottle probably still wasn't completely empty when F. the wife of the Ptuj photographer R. L. died; it became a memory fragment of the everyday movements and scent of a beloved wife, just like all the love letters that they kept for decades. After the photographer's death, his memory of his wife became his children’s memory of their mother. The children also kept the father’s cigarette case with some of the remaining cigarettes. In that way they could vividly bring to life before their eyes his gestures and little habits… Which were also in fact a part of their life.

About the photographs:

  • Preserved love letters from the times before the marriage - memory of past times and feelings, later memory of parents, Ptuj / second half of the 20th c..
  • Perfume bottle, memory of the wife and the mother, Ptuj / second half of the 20th c.
  • Cigarette case with remaining cigarettes, memory of the father, Ptuj / second half of the 20th c.
  • Photography from family archive, personal and collective family memory, Ptuj / second half of the 20th c.