Full Description
Junk Drawer: What We Leave Behind explores the personal objects that were once treasured by their owners yet were ultimately consigned to online "junk drawer" sales. Photographer and coeditor Barbara Von Eckardt acquired these random assortments from estate remnants on eBay and has documented their contents through evocative, sepia-toned images. In doing so, she has breathed new life into items that the world had deemed valueless, but that hint at the stories and identities of those who once owned them.
In addition to the photographs, Von Eckardt and coeditor Sander L. Gilman have gathered essays by scholars across disciplines, each offering a unique perspective on how such everyday objects can carry profound meaning. The result is a "junk drawer" of reflections, as varied and thought-provoking as the artifacts themselves. It is a moving testament to the emotional and cultural resonance of ordinary things—and an invitation to look more deeply at the objects surrounding us.
Contents
Acknowledgments
List of Plates and Figures
Introduction: A Road Map to Junk Drawers, Photographs and Meaning
Barbara Von Eckardt, Artist's Statement
Junk Drawer Photographs
Reading the Junk Drawer Photographs
1. Mary Bergstein, "What We Leave Behind"
2. Daniel Cavicchi, "Estate Curiosities"
3. John P. Jacob, "Ghost Stories"
Thinking about Junk
4. Margaret Olin, "From 'Junk' to 'Junked'"
5. Sander L. Gilman, "From 'Junk to Junque'"
6. Laura Levitt and Ruth Ost, "Ordinary and Extraordinary Objects and their Afterlives"
7. Rhoda Rosen and Amanda Leigh Davis, "Artifacts and Access"
Contributors
Index
