You never know when you might need them …

An exhibition of collected objects, gathered for inspiration, information and creative practice.A group of around twenty artists, designers and teachers have been invited to display a personal 'collection' of 'objects' or images in the gallery. These collections will all be sheltering a profusion of personal memories and histories that have in many cases inspired narratives, or led to the creation of new works of art and design. 

This exhibition will explore the way objects and their arrangement may reveal wider ideas about working practices derived from processes of accumulation selection and order. In essence, this will be a collection of ’collections’. The exhibition will seek to raise issues about the power of objects in reconstructing collective histories or collective memories. 

In imposing an order on a collection, an individual collector will take control of the way the objects may be viewed or encountered by others. Each carefully accumulated object will have been assigned a precise meaning within a particular context, or according to some other motive for the collection’s existence. In harnessing these diverse collections, the exhibition will also confront issues about the juxtaposition of objects, which have little or no relation to each other. Things brought together by chance or luck; often without a clearly discernible logic may have a disconcerting yet powerfully creative effect.

A symposium to accompany the exhibition will be held in the Sallis Benney Theatre on Saturday 22 January 2005 and will extend the exploration to address a number of wider issues around the theme of collections and collecting within a cultural or social context.