Order is something I have been thinking about this morning in relation to the display of the collections in my space. My instinct was to arrange all the similar objects together neatly, this seemed like the most natural thing to do. Now i am thinking I need to actually explore other ways of displaying to see how this then affects the interpretation of these collections. What happens when objects aren’t displayed orderly how we expect? Do we automatically expect order? In a shop for example you would not expect a shelf to be muddled and untidy, you would expect order and consistency.
I then got thinking about how we order things in everyday life. For example in my room, I have all my shoes lined up with similar types together. It wouldn’t cross my mind to put a pair of heels in between two pairs of boots. I honestly do not know why I order things like this. Does it make me feel more organised or is it just a habit I have gotten into? I think order and system can be a big part of everyday life, we just act upon things tasks so naturally we do not realise.
Thinking about organisation and the process got me thinking about a quote I read a couple of weeks ago:
“Material culture and language have two important attributes in common. Both mean something to their own societies; words and objects are pointless if they do not carry intelligible meaning. Similarly, neither can carry meaning alone; a word only has meaning in relation to other words amongst which it will be embedded through socially meaningful organisation, and equally an object only has meaning in relation to, or in juxtaposition with, other objects. Objects are, therefore, socially meaningful, but their meaning is produced by arranging them in sets, both mentally and physically”.
(Pearce, S. (1995) On Collecting: An Investigation Into Collecting In The European Tradition. London: Routledge.)
I think this is a very interesting point. Is the object meaningless if separated from the others it belongs with? Is a collection then no longer a collection if something is missing?