Humans have an extraordinary urge to collect things. Psychologists say collecting can provide pleasure, identity, order, nostalgia, social connection and “the thrill of the hunt”. Some collectors are driven by rarity, others by beauty, completeness, memory or simple curiosity. One researcher estimates that roughly a third of people collect something, whether stamps, sneakers or fridge magnets. But beyond conventional hobbies lies a stranger world: people who devote years – sometimes entire lifetimes – to gathering objects so oddly specific that the collections become artworks in themselves. The collector turns the mundane into the remarkable.
- Airline safety cards
- Airline sick bags #
- Antique mousetraps
- Banana stickers
- Barbie Dolls #
- Bricks #
- Beer coasters
- Bottle caps
- Bread tags [RR1:09] #
- Celebrity hair clippings
- Coat hangers #
- Dirt and sand samples #
- Elevator buttons
- Erasers shaped like food
- Escalator warning signs
- Exit signs #
- Fast-food promotional cups
- Fortune cookie fortunes [RR3:29] #
- Fruit crate labels
- Golf-course pencils
- Hotel “Do Not Disturb” signs #
- Hot sauces #
- Matchbooks
- McDonald’s Happy Meal toys
- Miniature bottles of Tabasco [RR5:78]
- Napkins from restaurants
- Old keys
- Paper clips found on the ground [RR3:59] #
- Parking meters
- Pencil sharpeners
- Police mugshots
- Police patches #
- Rolling pins #
- Rubber ducks
- Seashells shaped like letters
- Shopping lists found in supermarket trolleys #
- Snow globes [RR6:XX] #
- Stones that look like human faces [RR6:59] #
- Sugar packets
- Tin robots #
- Tiny pigs #
- Toothpaste tubes [RR1:84] #
- Traffic cones #
- Typewriter ribbons
- Vacuum cleaners
- Vintage lunch boxes
- Vintage motel ashtrays
- “Wet Floor” signs
Some of the best collections are visually repetitive — hundreds of nearly identical objects lined up together — because repetition transforms ordinary items into something surreal, funny and strangely beautiful. A wall of airline safety cards or thousands of banana stickers can become more visually arresting than a traditional art collection. The collector turns the mundane into the remarkable.
# Pictured above
Image Captions
Top to bottom, left to right: Airline sick bags > Barbie dolls > Bricks > Bread tags [RR1:09] > Coat hangers > Dirt and sand samples > Exit signs > Fortune cookie fortunes [RR3:29] > Hotel “Do Not Disturb” signs > Hot sauces > Paper clips found on the ground [RR3:59] > Police patches > Rolling pins > Shopping lists found in supermarket trolleys > Snow globes [RR6:XX] > Stones that look like human faces [RR6:59] > Tin robots [Ed: Do you recognise the REMORANDOM podcast co-host Claudia Chan Shaw?] > Tiny pigs > Toothpaste tubes [RR1:84] > Traffic cones
