An object associated with someone or something we love can elicit the intangibles of an important relationship: memories of conversations, arguments, gestures of kindness, love, misunderstanding.
This object can serve as a nexus of the emotional interactions that bind us to people and the environment, restoring stories seemingly long-dissolved by time.
Intangibles arising from objects can re-establish a sense of possibility, of interaction, with people and places whose roles in our world have otherwise ended.
We can re-frame our reflections to tell new stories about our present and future.
An exObject can be about something real, like a lost key, an inherited watch, a hand-made box, something in nature. Or it can be imagined, something we wish we could experience. An exObject can be the sharing of time, like a regular journey taken down a familiar road there and back.
By looking closely, using our imaginations, talking to others, we have the chance to re-envisage valued people, places or things lost but not forgotten.
Creating an exObject can make intangibles feel more reachable.
Through reflection we can bring physical objects used by generations of a family, or a river or field, into a hopeful present.
Every exObject is hopeful. It might start with a sense of loss, such as a green space where we used to play or sit. The object can be regret for not spending enough time with family or friends. It can be the yearning for a relationship we never had (or not in the way we wanted it). Loss can be a hope we had for the future that is not yet realised, that is still possible.
Inspirations for exObjects
Following a Covid infection, Jean Boyle died on 12th December 2020. In the hours, days, weeks and months that followed, objects surfaced from the range of her 89 years of life…
… letters that tentatively initiated decades of being together, blunt Hollywood film reviews with the capacity to dent famous actors and directors alike, and fabric designs inspired by love and a respect for nature.
Jean and Terry Boyle took part in Colours, Community & Chemistry at a Lancashire museum.
Read the Other lives obituary published in The Guardian 10th February 2021.
Read Terry Boyle’s Other Lives obituary in The Guardian 30th August 2021.
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Go to the exObjects public collaboration
Find out more about what Artificial Silk has made to date
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