Charly

Why do people collect things that serve no function and seem to follow no shared idea of beauty?

This question, sparked by my interest in kitsch and collecting, was the starting point of this documentary photo project. On my search for a collection I could portray, I turned to Charly, an  retired chemistry and physics teacher. When we think of collectors, we usually imagine people devoted to a single subject. Charly is different, and perhaps for that very reason the archetype of a collector: railway memorabilia, street signs, beer coasters, Christmas CDs and all kinds of other objects fill two entire floors of his house.

Through photographs and many conversations, I explored how his collection gives memories a physical form: spaces you can literally walk through. Chaotic and overcrowded, they resemble the workings of memory itself.

The result is a fold-out artist book that mirrors the experience of discovery. Page by page, the viewer enters Charly's world, until it unfolds into a single collage that reconnects all the objects.