Under Construction

We are building something new — a living museum made from the objects people carry.

Each contribution will become an exhibit: ordinary or extraordinary; fragile or enduring; holding memory, belonging, and meaning.

This museum is always growing.
Every object added will bring another story, another perspective, another way of seeing.

For now, we are still preparing the rooms, polishing the glass, and setting the lights.

Soon, you will be able to browse, linger, and let the objects speak.

And if you wish — you will be able to add your own.

Collection Room

Every museum begins with a collection, and so does every life. The things we gather first are rarely grand or deliberate. They are odd scraps that end up in drawers, on shelves, in boxes tucked under beds. A concert wristband, a hotel soap, a seashell, a button that no longer has a coat. These objects do not make sense to anyone else, but to the person who keeps them, they are anchors. They remind us not just of what happened, but how it felt to be there.

Psychologists call this cue-dependent memory: a small object can bring back an entire scene more vividly than words alone. A ticket stub can conjure the laughter of an evening. A stone can bring back the sound of the sea. Thing theorist Bill Brown writes that we often look through objects until they suddenly catch our attention again – charged with memory, heavy with feeling. It is at that moment, when an object stops being simply useful or ordinary and becomes noticed, remembered, or felt, that it turns into a thing. Anthropologist Daniel Miller notes, “the things we keep are the things that keep us.”

Things we keep
Fragments of ordinary days that remind us who we’ve been.

Objects of belonging
Familiar anchors that make new places feel like home.

Keepsakes and memories
Small containers of love, loss, and lived time.

Transformation Room

Objects live lives too. They are not fixed, though we often think of them that way. They crack, fade, break, mend, and sometimes begin again. A squeaky chair becomes part of the household soundtrack. A shirt becomes a cleaning rag. A chipped mug glued back together holds more than tea; it holds the story of its survival.

In Japan, the art of kintsugi repairs broken pottery with gold, making the cracks part of the beauty. This practice embodies a wider idea: that breakage is not the end, but a transformation. Philosopher and craftsman Richard Sennett described repair as a quiet form of resilience, a way of affirming that endurance can be as valuable as perfection.

When things break
Cracks that turn endurance into quiet beauty.

Second lives
Objects reborn with new purpose and story.

Objects of change
Tangible markers of the moments life shifted.

Connection Room

Not every object is chosen. Some arrive in our lives because they are handed down, gifted, or shared. A grandmother’s quilt, a friend’s necklace, a recipe card in a parent’s handwriting. These objects carry more than their material selves. They carry people.

Sociologists describe this as material kinship: the way things hold relationships in place. Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, writing about gifts, argued that no gift is ever free. Every given object carries an invisible thread, tying giver to receiver in love, obligation, or gratitude. Grief researchers speak of “continuing bonds.” A watch, a scarf, or even an empty chair can help us maintain a connection with someone long after they are gone.

Inherited and handed down
Traces of those who came before, living on through touch.

Objects as gifts
Gestures of care that bind giver and receiver across time.

Shared objects
Vessels of connection carrying the fingerprints of many.

Becoming Room

No one can keep everything. At some point, we let go. A toy once loved, a stack of letters, clothes that no longer fit who we are. Some objects leave quietly, others with difficulty. Yet psychologists studying clutter find that release can bring relief and even joy. To let go is not necessarily to lose. Sometimes, it is to make space for what matters now.

Paradoxically, letting go can sharpen memory. Without the object, the memory has room to grow lighter and clearer. At the end of life, people often choose one or two objects to pass on: a ring, a photograph, a handwritten note. These final selections are a way of distilling life into a small, lasting keepsake. And sometimes, the most powerful objects are the ones that do not yet exist – the future keepsakes or imagined artefacts that represent the lives we still hope to live.

Letting go
Acts of release that make space for what’s next.

Objects of absence
Reminders of what’s missing yet still shapes us.

Future keepsakes
Seeds of memory waiting to be worn into meaning.

Echo Room

Not every object has weight. Some live only on screens or in clouds, yet these digital things shape our memories as much as the tangible ones. A folder of photos, a saved email, a voice note from a loved one — they have no texture, yet they anchor us in time and feeling.

We often treat digital things as less real, but they hold presence. A playlist can return us to a moment as surely as an old cassette once did. A screenshot can preserve a message that might otherwise disappear.

And increasingly, digital objects blur into us. Phones track our steps, watches record our heartbeats, and some carry implants that are both object and body. The museum we carry is no longer only around us — it is also inside us.

Saved things
Screenshots and snippets preserving fleeting connection.

Digital heirlooms
Our online traces that outlive the hands that made them.

Objects we cannot touch
From stored memories to implanted artefacts.

Imagination Room

Not every object exists in the world. Some live only in our minds. A promise we once made. A scent that transports us back. The shape of a house we dream of building, the weight of a letter we never sent. These are the invisible exhibits of the museum we carry.

Psychologists call them mental objects—imagined things that evoke emotion as vividly as tangible ones. They are the outlines of what could have been, or what we still hope might be. We may never hold them, but they hold us.

Artists and writers know this well: creation begins with a phantom. The chair before it’s carved, the melody before it’s hummed. We curate futures not only by collecting what is, but by tending to what might be.

In this room, absence hums like presence. The objects here are made of memory, dream, and desire. They remind us that imagination is also a form of keeping.

Unwritten letters
The conversations that never happened.

Dream blueprints
Imagined homes, careers, or journeys.

Phantom keepsakes
Items that once were, or might one day be.