I conducted an interview with an avid transport collector at the weekend. His main interest was in taking slides of steam trains. For this hobby he travelled all over the world with friends and alone to acquire images. After 40 years of collecting he speculated that there were approximately 15-20 thousand images in his collection. He spoke about how slides were his preferred medium as they allowed for simultaneously display within the social group of the trainspotter. He meets up with 4 friends every year and each displays the slides taken 30 years ago and also those taken last year. He spoke about how in the desired image for the collection was one of combined quality between locomotion and location. In pursuit of new acquisitions he was arrested twice in communist East Germany (when the Berlin Wall was still up). On trying to rationalise the Why? of the collection he spoke about wanting to capture the memory of an experience and then to be able to share this. This memory of an experience led to comfort and satisfaction and he talked about the pleasure derived from a tangible record.
My Conclusions:
Collection & Context.
Continual process and movement.
Tangible, physical, tactile objects of memories and experiences.
Shared experience of display.
Predictable, repetition, control.
Then we have a set of drawers with hidden bits and pieces, flaps, slides, extra spaces, fake bits, etc etc. I guess for the guilty collector, or as a tool for starting a collection: filling the secret spaces with secret things.
