The Systems of Collecting

(watch from 1:51)

‘Every object in that room is equally a form by which they have chosen to express themselves’- Daniel Miller(1).  This summarises, for me, what it is to collect things as it is a statement that I can most relate to in my own collecting habits. I think we all have a desire to surround ourselves with things of comfort, things that allow us to remember what we choose to remember. I collect things that remind me of events, people, experiences, the only thing that bounds the object I collect together is my own life.  So I guess I collect my life, storing it away so I can take it out and reflect upon it whenever I like. As Miller states, ‘these things are not a random collection. They have been gradually accumulated as an expression of that person.’ Miller see’s people collections and possessions as a direct reflection of that person, and believes that people need the comfort of things in the sadness of our lives. However, I think in circumstances where collecting goes beyond the normalities and becomes an obsession, and the collection controls the subjects life entirely, the situation changes.  An extreme example of this is Pat and Joe’s collection of Cabbage patch dolls. The couple have 5,000 cabbage patch dolls resulting in them building an entire new house to store the dolls into. When I first watched these videos my instinctive thought was that Pat and Joe were mad, they were unrelatable to anything I had ever seen before, as their collection seemed to shape their existence, dictating entirely who they are. The fact that Pat and Joe believe that the dolls are like children, and infact refuse to use the word ‘doll’, infers some sort of loss or incapability to have children. Fraud would argue that a Pat and Joe’s collections act as a way of blocking out trauma. He argues that collecting is the way we deal with our trauma, we collect to protect ourselves from facing what it is that haunts our unconscious minds. Could the couples collections be a devise used to distract them from the truth?

Baudrillard says ‘the object thus emerges as the ideal mirror. For the images it reflects succeeds on another while never contradiction on another. More over it is ideal in that it reflects not of what is real but only of what is desirable.’ This suggests how for Pat and Joe they find it difficult to live in the real world and so have created a fictional world in which what they desire becomes a reality. It outlines how they are living in the desired imagination and thus invest their time and money into this imagination because they find it nearly impossible to form human relationships. The way they talk to the dolls is deeply concerning for two adults and gives the impression of them being childlike with an inability to live as adults in the real world, where they rely on the cabbage patch dolls to give them security from forming real human relationships. ‘Ordinary human relationships, which are the site of the unique and the conflictual, never permit such a fusion of absolute singularity and indefinite seriality. This explains why ordinary relationships are such a continual source of anxiety.’ The distress ordinary relationships can cause people can make them revert to forming relationships with things they can control, in this case, Pat and Joe’s cabbage patch dolls, as it is something that has been created by that person, the objects purpose has been decided by the subject and so there is no possibility for conflict or anxiety like in human relationships.

Although highly personal, we can see how Pat and Joe’s collection of dolls is shared with other like minded collectors giving the notion of normalisation. Together as one, the group of collectors can play out their desired lives and create a new world in which collecting is the normal. As Baudrillard says ‘The boundless passion invested in the game is what lends this regressive behaviour it sublimity and reinforces the opinion that an individual who is not some sort of collector can only be a cretin or hopelessly subhuman.’ What Baudrillard is saying here is how collectors form groups with other like-minded collectors so that they can play out the game together with group affirmation. Those who do not collect are outside the imaginary loop and are consequently perceived as ‘subhuman’. This explains how Pat and Joe have a entire group of people who all collect cabbage patch dolls so that even their real relationships with people are stemmed and evolving around their collections. Youtube is a modern device that creates group affirmation amongst likely people, allowing people to share, comment and appreciate what once might have been a secret habit.

(1)    – Daniel Miller (2008). the comfort of things. cambridge: polity press. 301.

(2)    - Jean Baudrillard (1994). the cultures of collecting. cambridge, Massachusetts : harvard university press. 24.