Relationship of objects and people

Objects and identity

Objects have a very significant place in psychology. From early childhood on, one starts to identify with objects and form bonds. The wide known example of this is the transitional object or comfort object introduced by Donald Winnicott. This object, usually a blanket, becomes a substitute for the early mother-child connection and serves as a comforting item. The child uses the object during its transitional period from the psychic reality to the external reality in which it grasps the separation between itself and the external world.

In adolescence, ownership and accumulation of objects is established. Adolescence is a phase in which one’s identity is shaping and one’s life transitioning. During this period, dependence on personal objects peaks. The reminding and reminiscing aspects of objects are amplified due to the need for affirming one’s life-story and past. Objects help construct a narrative and reassure one’s identity and autobiography by reminding the person of past events and significant people in their lives. These factors support the idea that personal objects become more significant during such transition periods and at old age.*

Contrary to keeping and caring for objects, the act of getting rid of them is also significant in psychology. Although the notion of decluttering is reinforced as an antidote to hoarding, the urge to throw personal objects away is also rooted in the complicated and strong relationship people have with their objects; much like collecting or hoarding. Throwing things away is an attempt at a rejection of the dependency on objects; while keeping them is to accept this dependency and to immerse in it.

Taking personal objects and using them in artwork is also a way of dealing with objects and one’s relationship with them. To transform these objects into artwork and to offer them as display  -even when they are someone else’s things- is the artist’s way of responding to the bond people have with objects.  

Sources

*Habermas, T., & Paha, C. (2002.). Souvenirs and other personal objects: Reminding of past events and significant others in the transition to university. In J. D. Webster & B. K. Haight (Eds.), Critical Advances in Reminiscence Work (p.123-138). New York: Springer.