Margot Swift
I am an unashamed collector, my home is testament to that with papers from grandparents, parents and my own life that document everyday thoughts and transactions. I do not know whether they expected their private notes to be kept beyond their time, but this first hand evidence of personal histories is too valuable, for me, to discard. My MA research was into the kind of documentation people make of their lives, listers of trains spotted, birds seen, beers drunk; I am fascinated by these creations and the value placed by individuals on the seemingly insignificant. It is not only the personal narratives that can be pieced together from such artefacts, but the tactile qualities seem to exude a sense of time and place; as a designer I am attracted by the graphical qualities of typography, print quality and papers of earlier times. The opportunity to delve into random collections and share the experience with others who will look at the same resources with an entirely different perspective is the attraction of this creative collaboration - a kind of 'show and tell' of what each of us has taken from the artefacts.