Postcards, cocktail stirrers, stickers and sugar packets: These are the incidental objects that punctuate our lives. Momentarily useful and quickly forgotten, their designs are rooted fundamentally in the present; they are mass produced for brief use before being replaced with the new and the next. It is little surprise that collectors find the very idea of this impermanence appealing. The richly textured variations of these cheap and disposable ephemera offer an honest insight into the whims and fancies of a specific time and conjure a shadowy image of previous owners. It follows that even the most ordinary objects can become charged with new meaning if a famous artist or writer—someone who has spent their life creating their own mythology—once possessed them. This story is from Kinfolk Issue Forty-Eight Buy Now Related Stories Arts & Culture Issue 49 Minor Lapses The new way of doing nothing. Arts & Culture Issue 48 Sweet Nothing On the virtues of hanging out. Arts & Culture Issue 39 The Next Big Nothing On not quite making it. Arts & Culture Issue 51 Emily Gernild The Danish painter breathing new life into an old medium. Arts & Culture Food Issue 51 Imogen Kwok The artist takes food styling quite literally, creating accessories out of fruits and vegetables. Arts & Culture Design Issue 51 How to Make a Chair And do it on a tiny budget.
Arts & Culture Food Issue 51 Imogen Kwok The artist takes food styling quite literally, creating accessories out of fruits and vegetables.