From our partners at Art Practical, today we bring you a look back at Christina Catherine Martinez’s essay on collections, which she calls “an arrangement of language and objects toward a social purpose… the work of fencing off some discernible patch of belonging amid the wild landscape of existence.” This article was originally published on February 6, 2014.

Aurora Crispin. A Selection of Everything, 2012; installation view, Important Projects, Oakland. Courtesy of Important Projects. Photo: Important Projects.

In 2005, Aurora Crispin set out to photograph every single one of her possessions, from boots to books to dust bunnies. There is a sweetness to the impossibility of her mission, even as the photos of the things themselves suggest some vague finality, like memento mori of an ever-receding present. Some things are photographed separately, some in random groups. The lighting is subdued and slightly beatific. The objects sit unperturbed in the middle of a white, seamless background like unlikely recipients of some newfound fame, rubbing their eyes in the glare of a flashbulb. There is a flaccid hair elastic, the kind with a ball at each end that guys never seem to understand how to work. Elsewhere is a used, and surprisingly beautiful, lavender-colored Kleenex, its corners splayed out azalea-like around a tight center knot concealing the dark heart of booger. The project’s title, A Selection of Everything, invites us to follow the logical thread surrounding the banality of such an arbitrary collection; anything is a selection of everything.

Read the full article here.