KATHERINE RICHMOND

Our world is in a constant state of flux; we are forced to establish tangible markers of change to help shape the construction of our memories and to do so we collect objects, such as letters, photographs, and souvenirs. We can control our possessions in a way that little else can be controlled, offering us a sense of stability in a world of change. For a true collector, the desire for perfection and control through the order of objects can be so strong that it develops into an obsession. 

 

Walter Benjamin wrote of the book collector’s mysterious relationship to ownership and the ‘dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order’. It is, he says, a passion that ‘borders on the chaos of memories’.

 

My work explores the fragile relationship between memory and objects. I use books as a symbol of permanence and longevity to create wearable objects with a fragility that questions traditional notions of wear-ability. As an item worn close to the body, jewellery contains a strong emotional and physical relationship to the wearer and its small scale makes it the ideal collectible item. My work challenges values of permanence and stability by embracing the beauty of the imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete.