In early 2012, I had been thinking about objects and particularly why objects matter and why we collect the stuff we do. Around that time, I interviewed Katharine Mulherin at her gallery on Queen West in Toronto. I learned we share an interest in collecting seemingly random objects, things that are not quite art, not really design, but objects from the past whose shape, form, or colour appeals to our senses or the moment. I think of these objects as artifacts of someone else’s personal history that I appropriate into the grand narrative of an unwritten memoir. My partners call these objects junk.
I asked Katharine why she collects the things she does. “Oh, I don’t know,” she responded initially and then paused and said, “Joy. I collect things because they bring me joy.”
The series “My Junk Taste Like Flowers” is both a documentation of objects and an expression of joy about them. This series is photographs of sculptures made with my junk which are then venerated with flowers. Arranging my junk was like restacking and reordering memories. The whole was other than the sum of its parts.
MANIFESTATION
“My Junk Taste Like Flowers” is manifested as an installation, a series of colour instant photographs, and an artist book.
Altar to My Junk
Altar to My Junk is a variable installation of found and plaster objects with silk flowers on a raised surface. About Altar Making
Altar to My Junk
COLOUR INSTANT PHOTOGRAPHS
I documented each of these sculptures using a Polaroid 360 Land Camera and Fujifilm FP-100c to make a colour instant photograph in editions of three, except for the titular piece, My Junk Taste Like Flowers, which is an edition of 100 and released as an artist book.
ARTIST BOOK
Object & Joy
A booklet containing the essay “Object & Joy: My Junk Taste Like Flowers” and images of photographs from the series.
and
My Junk Taste Like Flowers
by Ric Kasini Kadour
4.25” x 3.25”
colour instant photograph
2013
edition of 100
EXHIBITION HISTORY
Galerie Maison Kasini, February & March 2013