Irina Polin
My Collection
In 1993 I left Moscow to live in Switzerland. When I packed my things, I could take exactly 20 kilos with me. 20 kilos for everything, leaving the place where one always lived for ever, is so little, that not even useful and necessary stuff can fit in. But I even didn't think about taking anything useful. I packed only old things from my old home - Soviet porcelain collection, glass, postcards and books I knew by heart with dry leaves between the pages. Memories vanish as soon as things are gone, just like wiped-off dust. But things last, recalling all that they once contained, sustained, witnessed. Everything I wanted to take with me had only emotional value. Of course, I forgot all my treasures in Switzerland. Once my other life had started, I put them in the cellar, where they stayed for years. I even completely forgot about their existence, but suddenly I discovered all those boxes, and sensed the inner mystery of the terminated past of my life which is now being restored. I decided to do series of photographs, which I called "My Collection". I tried to photograph all those things and objects I brought with me and many others, which I collected over the years. I made compositions in the show-case, where I tried to reconstruct memories of how it used to be, to recreate the past and to make it present in a different place at a different time - here and now. I tried to capture objects at the moment when they ceased to exist to be kept forever. Things are washed, mended and sealed into eternity - eternity deeply attached to objects, material, none existing other than in memories invoked by things.
