PERSONAL OBJECT
BGC STUDY COLLECTION OBJECT
Maker unknown
Gold Om Necklace
Ahmedabad, India
Gold
Maker unknown
Woodblocks for Hand Printing
Likely India
Wood
delicate gold necklace
becomes a beacon
for those who have passed on
My necklace was given to me by my grandmother when I was born. In April 2020, when she passed away, the necklace became a beacon for her legacy. This object outlives people and tells their stories when they can’t.
The most interesting thing about this object is the wear that it has and the stories that the wear tells. If you look closely you will see many chips and scratches covering the surface of both blocks. By looking at these chips we can imagine the life of the object. Likely created in India in the nineteenth or eighteenth century, the blocks were used for block printing. Each chip transports you to the time that the permanent indent was made. The missing metal stud could bring you to a printing press in Rajasthan, and the dress on which the print was embedded could still be worn today or on display in a museum. The two punctures near the top of the left block could have occurred during the transportation of the object from India to New York. Objects are so vital because they transcend and outlive people. They have their own histories independent of their owners.
COMPARATIVE ESSAY
Objects tell the stories of human history more effectively than humans. Objects watch but don’t see, they hear but don’t speak, they are born but they never die. Objects outlive humans and have their own stories that stretch beyond the stories we humans can tell. For this project, I concerned myself with two very different objects. My personal object is an Om necklace that was given to me by my grandmother and the object that I chose from the study collection was a set of two wood block printing blocks.
ABOUT THE CURATOR
Arjun Prasse is a rising junior at Bard High School Early College Manhattan. His favorite subjects in school are literature and history. In his free time he likes to play and watch soccer. To Arjun active matter is thinking about the stories that objects are able to tell. Active matters means considering objects are participants of history and not just bystanders.