mary o' neill

Mary O'Neill is currently Senior Lecturer in Critical and Cultural Context at the University of Lincoln. I have recently become interested in what we throw away; the knick-knacks that end up in junk shops, in boxes of house clearance odds... [more]

Mary O'Neill is currently Senior Lecturer in Critical and Cultural Context at the University of Lincoln.

 

I have recently become interested in what we throw away; the knick-knacks that end up in junk shops, in boxes of house clearance odds and ends. These objects had once been seen as valuable.  I do not mean worth a significant amount of money, but worth making, worth selling, and worth buying.  Now many were definitely in the category of rubbish, without the possibility of rehabilitation that Michael Thompson's definition of this category involves.  According to Thomson objects can pass through the rubbish category to re-establish their place in the world of value.  It is extremely unlikely that any of these objects will be rehabilitated in this way.  They were imitations of objects when they were first made, and often poor imitations at that.  But they had been loved, been treasured. They had been owned by people for whom authenticity was not a concern.  Their owners would not have distinguished between a Faberge egg and a copy.  As long as the copy was satisfying why should they? 

The object were/are aspirational.  Not that the owners wanted to own the original upon which these are based but they wanted to share in the symbolism, the fantasy, that the original and the copy represented.  In the series of photographs 'Return to the Wild' these objects are placed in gardens and woods suggesting another possible existence, another fantasy life. 

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