ESTATE SALE

ESTATE SALE: Exploring identity and personal history through the commodified object explores how commodity items and material goods can serve as evidence of one’s existence. It features objects collected from six estate sales throughout the summer of 2023, displayed on thrifted furniture. All objects bought with price tags have retained them to highlight the often absurd prices for things most people have no use for, like a mostly used-up paper pad, an old Monopoly set with no board, or a binder full of designs for funeral programs. Some items did not have price tags, and I did not pay the listed price for many items.

The objects that enter our lives are notable—often serving as markers of time, signifiers of identity, or evidence of impulses. In the context of estate sales, these objects take on an added layer of complexity, as they transition from the intimate spaces of personal ownership to the public arena of exchange. As such, estate sales provide a unique vantage point to observe how these objects, once deeply intertwined with individual narratives, embark on new journeys of significance and value.

An estate sale makes the exchange of objects the occasion for a complex social interaction. Most of the objects populating estate sales didn’t originate with anyone in attendance; they came from somewhere else, were made by someone else. An object travels through social worlds and carries forward histories, perhaps first belonging to those who produced it, and later, to those who bought, used, altered, sold, traded, or discarded it. In setting up the installation as an actual estate sale, my intention is to engage both the observer and myself in the complex social and economic histories of the objects. The installation’s culmination in an estate sale also blurs the boundaries between art and commodity. By transforming the gallery space into a place of transaction, the installation creates an atmosphere where objects once meant for reflection now embrace commerce. The once discrete boundaries typically upheld within gallery space dissolve, inviting a reconsideration of art's function in the world of transactions and trade.

The displayed photographs in the installation highlight the limitations of memory. These images, once snapshots of rich lives, have now found themselves in estate sales, the people and memories within seemingly forgotten by the heirs of the photographs. Through these pictures, we witness the complex interplay between photography and memory, where people and moments once cherished become overshadowed by the passage of time. Observers are prompted to reflect on remembrance's fragility, the power of preservation, and the stories that persist within objects, even when removed from their origins.

The work also acts as an homage to the technological object. Every estate sale I visited contained obsolete electronics. These artifacts, cutting edge in their time, have now been consigned to the margins of contemporary relevance, a reminder of the rapid pace at which innovation yields to the march of technological progress. They occupy a liminal space, imbued with nostalgic memories yet presently useless to and overlooked by most. This leaves their owners with uncertainty — What is to be done with these relics of a bygone era? The choices are often binary—discard them into the abyss of waste or keep them, awaiting a fate that inevitably leads them back to the sphere of estate sales.

Even within these sales—spaces meant for the transfer of objects—many of these obsolete electronics find themselves untouched by prospective buyers. This recurring cycle encapsulates the dynamics of obsolescence, underscoring our evolving relationship with material culture, nostalgia, and technological progress.

These artifacts ultimately embody a paradox of simultaneous nostalgia and indifference, rendering visible the economic currents that shape the destiny of objects. As visitors engage with the installation, they confront questions of attachment, value, and the dance between innovation and disposability that defines our contemporary relationship with technology.