Christian Boltanski's work is based around large collections of objects. His most famous work is about the holocaust. This piece Halifax is of a huge scale, following Boltanski's natural trend. The company was shutting down and many people were made redundant. Boltanski decided to contact everyone who had lost their job and asked them to place an object in a box. Once he had collected all of these pieces he placed them in the basement of the building where they had all once worked and shut the door. However, now many people have visited this to 'look' at these objects in the boxes from these workers.
I am not in particularly interested in the subject matters that he looks into but the way in which he catalogues and decides what do do with everything that he has accumulated. Boltanski believes that he collects, and that others collect, a a way of fighting against the fact that you are going to die and that you will be forgotten. What he collects are both "personal and collective memories", what he is creating is "a village of people". That is exactly what it is. Each box is personal but all are there for the same reason and belong with each other. The uniformity to this displays the structure in his life and the control he wants and needs over his death. This might be a cry out for him. That once he is gone he wants someone to catalogue him like this, so he will not be forgotten and people will go and visit him. The fact that it is in the basement again reinforces this idea of safety, preservation and death. Like the people who die, these items have been buried below. It is safe in there with the strong walls and the knowledge that this collection is in a controlled space where no harm can come to it. The coldness in there acts almost as a freezer, things may be dead but they will still stay alive in these conditions.
"The more you collect things, the more stays hidden"
Image taken from: http://halifaxfestival.co.uk/ai1ec_event/christian-boltanski-the-lost-workers/?instance_id=
BOLTANSKI, Christian. 1997. Time. Phaidon Press.
TATE. 2014. TateShots: Christian Boltanski. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8IbN7HNIhM [accessed 20 October 2014].
I am not in particularly interested in the subject matters that he looks into but the way in which he catalogues and decides what do do with everything that he has accumulated. Boltanski believes that he collects, and that others collect, a a way of fighting against the fact that you are going to die and that you will be forgotten. What he collects are both "personal and collective memories", what he is creating is "a village of people". That is exactly what it is. Each box is personal but all are there for the same reason and belong with each other. The uniformity to this displays the structure in his life and the control he wants and needs over his death. This might be a cry out for him. That once he is gone he wants someone to catalogue him like this, so he will not be forgotten and people will go and visit him. The fact that it is in the basement again reinforces this idea of safety, preservation and death. Like the people who die, these items have been buried below. It is safe in there with the strong walls and the knowledge that this collection is in a controlled space where no harm can come to it. The coldness in there acts almost as a freezer, things may be dead but they will still stay alive in these conditions.
"The more you collect things, the more stays hidden"
Image taken from: http://halifaxfestival.co.uk/ai1ec_event/christian-boltanski-the-lost-workers/?instance_id=
BOLTANSKI, Christian. 1997. Time. Phaidon Press.
TATE. 2014. TateShots: Christian Boltanski. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8IbN7HNIhM [accessed 20 October 2014].