Objects hold deep secrets and memories; they carry cultural, social, political and/or religious meanings. When thinking of the history of the city of London, the River Thames is a great teller in narrating many stories and beholding such memories throughout many years. It represents the collective memory and ends with an interpersonal one.

I am interested in archived objects that represent fundamental aspects of city infrastructures. Those archived objects convey powerful and crucial information in the construction of cities. On a philosophical matter, such objects don’t only inform but also carry the memories of the city. Thus, the concept of 5 Objects of Memories was established.

The narrative of this project is to mediate how archived objects of a city can behold memories from their past and reclaim those old memories into their reconstructed version. This abstract narrative can also iterate how those reconstructed objects inform a new memory based on where it is displayed and to whom.

The River Thames is a channel that offers the public an enormous amount of London’s history. I went on a mudlark trip to the Thames, where I collected multiple objects that fit the grounds of this project. Each object narrates parts of the city infrastructure’s past and present.

After finding the five objects, I photographed and sketched them to become familiar with them. The missing parts of each object are recreated to create new memories and associated meanings; this allows a way to acknowledge the collective history of the object while enabling them to create new memories. I used domestic household materials to reconstruct the missing elements to make this project more personal.