‘Things’ at Wellcome Collection

I have a lot of things. I have a distinct need to accumulate things from my various relocations, travels and escapades and keep them in boxes, drawers and crannies – just in case.

However I am, as of yet, to have a case for needing a subway ticket from a late night trip to Glasgow in August 2007, or the now broken sunglasses I bought from a blind street salesman in Florence who said I looked like Sophia Loren, nor the water stained note I found in a vintage handbag (and is still there now).

But for some reason, these things consistently make it through the rigorous selection process that ensues whenever I move somewhere new. It was probably this predilection for hoarding that got me so excited when I started working on the new exhibition taking place at Wellcome Collection, the not so imaginatively titled, yet all encompassing, Things.

In an attempt to update the already extensive curious collections of the late Mr Henry Wellcome, Anthropologist and Chief Collector (read: Hoarder), already somewhere in the range of 1.5 million artefacts, Things is opening its shelves to the masses.

Curated by Artist Keith Wilson, from October 12, a bring-a-thing-a-thon will commence as members of the public are invited to loan or gift any object of their choosing which will then be catalogued, photographed, labelled and placed on a shelf dated Monday to Saturday for every day throughout 2011. Sunday objects will be placed in museum display cabinets.

The concept makes a refreshing change to the typical museum experience. We love looking at things, steaming up the glass peering into cabinets wondering what it was, whose it was and how it came to be there. With Things, we find ourselves taking part in a unique anthropological experiment cum installation, placing pieces of ourselves on the shelves of the very museum where we so shamelessly go and observe the lives of others. But how are we going to feel when it is our things behind that glass?

It is the true definition of ‘exhibition’, as the objects that will gradually populate the shelves from 12 to 19 October during the bring-a-thing-a-thon, exhibit unspoken insights into their owner’s lives. We’ll finally be on the other side of the glass, watching others look at our things, while we look at theirs in a unique look into the lives of our modern day hoarding brethren. Amongst whom you’ll find some surprising familiar faces putting their ‘things’ on display; in a series of videos, they prove how revealing things can be as they divulge why their respective things are so important to them including Jon Snow’s  lucky cufflinks and Janet Street Porter’s Patrick Heron painting both up for public inspection. My favourite has to be Jo Brand, with her amazing Russian doll in the guise of The Beatles.

Understandably then, the pressure is on and I find myself frantic trying to think what thing I want to put on display, a thing which, without sounding over dramatic, will ultimately define me to the hundreds of strangers routing through these snippets from our lives until October 19, when the take-back-a-thon begins until October 22. The only stipulations are no wet objects, human remains or explosives – and no bigger than your head…

If anything, you should join the bring-a-thing-a-thon simply for an excuse to use such perfect assonance in a sentence. I know I will.

Things bring-a-thing-a-thon takes place from October 12 t0 19 at:

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
Euston
NW1 2BE

From October 19 to 22 things can be reclaimed or will forever become part of the Wellcome Collection!

Also, if you’re one of those people who love your thing too much to let it go, you can upload a photo to the online gallery.

Video: Jo Brand brings her ‘thing’ to ‘Things’ at Wellcome Collection

Image: ‘Periodic Table’ (c) Keith Wilson