I once had a conversation with a neighbor about loving a thing. I said, “I love (a thing).” He said, “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t love a thing. You can like it. You can enjoy it. But you can’t love it.” We went around and around, until we both wandered off, the debate ending with no clear winner.

What was this conversation about, exactly? In retrospect, I believe it was about how things can move us emotionally. There are mere shades of difference between liking, loving, and desiring. I do believe many collectors love things, but the love for their objects may be more about what the objects produce in them affectively than about the things themselves. Many of the collectors in the Open House exhibition expressed desire in the pursuit of an object, the delight upon finding it, the care they look when they first brought it home, how it became familiar over the years, and the way it provoked affection again after sharing it with someone else.

More recently, curator Helen Molesworth presented a memoiristic lecture at Lesley University. She described her powerful early experiences with objects in museums, how visitors interacted with those objects, and how those experiences intersected with her other life experiences. She noted that she is still in awe today of how museums and cultural institutions preserve and care for objects, and what a great benefit this is to society. It was refreshing to hear of her profound appreciation. Molesworth, in contrast to the assertions of my neighbor, was someone who loved things, but the thing never stops at its own boundaries. She loved the surround of things as well.

I viewed Molesworth’s lecture, as well as my own process of developing the Open House exhibition, as the construction of a memory palace (although Molesworth did not use this phrase), typically associated with using architectural space as a mnemonic device.

Collections are so dense—each object—or series of objects, contains multiple spaces, accessed by a collector’s or audience's emotional reaction or memory. Memory, understood in this way, is not simply about recalling facts or dates or descriptions, but about revisiting and reexperiencing feelings and their spatial conditions. This enriches the idea of curation being a choreographic endeavor in compelling ways: the compositional and temporal configurations of objects, memories, and desires does not rest in the physical spaces alone, but in mental and affective ones as well.

Many memories are bound up in relational situations. The object at hand (or on the shelf) within the context of an exhibition on collecting moves us to recall an engagement with a person (self or other) as much as with a place or time. Or, perhaps this reveals the intertwined nature of all sensations and experiences. The participating collectors’ knowledge that the objects would be shared publicly furthered this relational potential, linking the past of relationality to present and future relationalities.

I had not realized the extent of the objects’ power. The reactions of audience members expanded my understanding of the project. The collections on display brought forth memories, conversations, and exchanges. Some visitors reacted to the work as if we had given them a gift. People came once, and then returned, often with a friend in tow. People were moved.

As the exhibition’s frame came into view, it became clear that it was not about me—or us—doing something with all of our objects, but rather, allowing our objects to do something to us individually and collectively. Making introductions, alliances, and futures. The arrangement of collections was about arranging relations—making space for their potentials to unfold.