My boyfriend bought me a pasta maker last Christmas. His justification was that he thought I liked eating pasta. I thought it was a subliminal way of trying to split up with me. I cried. I gave it back. Surprisingly, we’re still together.
I live in Amsterdam. The Dutch love kabouters (garden gnomes). I astro-turfed my balcony in a nod to just how much I don’t want to look after plants and flowers and garden accessories. I was given this nonetheless. He whistles when you pass due to a sensor in his watering can. My cat hates him.
In 1998, I bought this china dog with a plate on it from a car boot sale in Kent.
IT HAS BEEN IN MY LOFT EVER SINCE.
So, I managed to buy myself JUST WHAT I NEVER WANTED.
When I was invited to give something I had never desired to charity, I thought it was the perfect moment to get rid of some emotional objects which are too heavy to be thrown away. Last year, I met a charming young woman who rainbowed my life for only one night as she was leaving the very next day for a trip around Asia, which would last a few months. It was one of those encounters that are magical, maybe because they are short and instantaneous, or maybe because nothing is consumed and stays in the lightness of the unknown.
This encounter was stuck in my head for a few months, not knowing what to do with it, but knowing that there was no future, this moment was caught in its best. The day she left London, she was moving her last things from her house and gave me a teapot that someone had given to her for her birthday of other celebration, and there I was with a teapot that sat for more than a year on a shelf on my studio, like a trophy, a souvenir, a shrine for a good night that changed my life for a moment and my shelf for longer.
I received this mirror on my 21st birthday. A well-meaning friend gave me it, assuming I loved the Rambo movies. He didn’t know me very well because more than twenty years later, I still don’t know how he came to such a conclusion. Still, I never had the heart to throw it out, and two decades on it still haunts me like a camp, muscle-bound ghost. This exhibition is a sign that I should finally exorcise John Rambo from my life, and I take it gladly.
Roger’s Profanisaurus, a gift from an Apfel uncle. Honestly, we have never looked at it, so we thought we should pass it on, and raise some money for charity in the process.
Dunhill makes cigarettes. Fancy cigarettes that cost around 20p more than your average pack of cigarettes. This is a key ring, a Dunhill key ring, therefore more expensive than your average key ring. My Father- in-law gifted this to me in 2008 on Boxing day. All the other men present received one also. It’s never left the box and is available for swaps.
