014 · Objects
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We forget that objects have a history. They shape us in particular ways. We forget why or how they came to be.1
As I sorted through Grandpa Willy’s photos, Grandma Edith’s photos, and Mom’s photos, I thought about all the hands that had held them. The fingers that had gently gripped the corners so as not to smudge the subjects in the frame.
Some photographs had writing on the back. I recognised Mom’s right-slanting block capitals. These were the photographs she had sent to Grandma Edith in Germany in the 1980s. After Grandma Edith died, they found their way back to me.
Sherry Turkle, 'What Makes an Object Evocative?', in Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, ed. by Sherry Turkle (MIT Press, 2007), pp. 307-27 (p.311).↩