Can we make sense of someone’s life by only viewing the objects they touch throughout a day?
From the items found in our homes, to the tools we use at work, we surround ourselves with objects necessary for our existence in todays world. But these needs are huge and diverse - they range from survival and performance to compensation and caring, emotional attachment and self-expression.
Imagine what your day would look like if you recorded everything you touched in 24 hours…and if everything was brought together in one place and a single photograph taken of it all. What would that image say about you and your day? Would strangers get a good sense of your life by looking at the objects laid out in chronological order? What would they deduce about you? What would they miss?
I felt the urge to document our current interaction with these objects. Many of the things we know about from past civilisations are from insights gathered through their objects. Their tools, utensils, clothes, manuscripts and art have taught us about the work they did, what they hunted, grew and ate and how they dressed or expressed themselves. Will ours do the same?
Driven by this idea, I travelled around the world to find people from an incredible array of ages, cultures, professions and backgrounds. I asked them to document every object they touched within 24 hours. Then I gathered those objects together and laid them all out on a canvas measuring 4 x 2.7 meters.
The upcoming documentary reveals our cross-cultural findings, the personal experiences of those who participated, the making of the shoots and the analytical commentary of experts in the field of design, history, anthropology and the arts.
every-thingwetouch.tumblr.com
Director and producer: Paula Zuccotti
Camera, editor and sound: Josh Wasserman
Second camera: Paula Zuccotti
Music: Going Higher by Bensound.com
Executive Producer: TheOverworld
The Trailer features
Steve Peters
Oscar Raby
Estanislao Carenzo
Ted Wang
Denise Huang
Ruth Osbourne
Paula Zuccotti
Richard Seymour
Dan Cruickshank
Dick Powell