There is, evidently, some crossover between walking and scavenging.
When I walk I often pick up objects I happen to see. Depending on where and when I’m walking these may be interesting rocks, the very occasional bird skull, a discarded shopping list or two, even bits of mechanical hardware.
The items end up in my shed which one day, I promise, will turn into the Nicholsonian Wunderkammer. Visits strictly by appointment.
This is not exactly what the American conceptual artist Mark Dion gets up to but I like to think it shares of some of the same impulses. Dion’s enterprise, I think we can say, is to question the whole nature of collecting, curating, organizing, hierarchies, and so on, and also the change in status that comes about when an object is put in a cabinet or under a bell jar, or in a museum:
This kind of thing:
I don’t claim Dion as a soul brother or even fellow traveler – I’m really just a fan, but by definition I do reclassify, reorganize and recontextualize the objects I find.
So when I was doing my now legendary A10 walk for the Stoke Newington Literary Festival, the route started in this rather unpromising though intriguing bit of territory:
And I picked up this spring as a souvenir.
I wouldn’t claim it’s the most wonderful or significant find but I didn’t have time for a full archeological survey. It's now in the collection:
Obviously Mark Dion doesn’t know me from a hole in the ground, but blow me down, on his Instagram feed a couple of days ago there was this image.
Coincidence?
Is there any such thing?
