Our Secret Lives Through Objects

Even the sun, which pulses life and energy into organic organisms, can sap the vibrance of a fabric’s hue through photodegradation. “Nothing that surrounds us is object,” wrote André Breton, “everything is subject.” The purpose of a glass is to hold. Water, or the last tacky burgundy crescent of wine. For the rest of its existence, what does a glass do but wait? A perfume bottle—also a glass, a vessel—holds, too, but constantly. To be constantly of use, does it connote a more fulfilling life than one spent waiting? Unconsciously we may be bleaching the cushion that rests in the same meridian as a certain potent beam of midday sun. Our spaces are a pastiche of our subconscious lives, ciphers for our internal worlds and preoccupations.

Here, a documentary-style inventory of items—the love story of a Comme des Garçons perfume, the unfinished narrative of Bottega Veneta sunglasses, the fate of a Dries Van Noten platform sandal—catalogued by Montreal-based photographer Fatine-Violette Sabiri and styled by Shahan Assadourian of @archivings.stacks.