My final year project is a chance for me to explore something that is of great interest to me in an in depth and thorough way, hopefully bringing all my work over the past three years to a conlusion.
My inspiration for this project came from a carboot sale early one Sunday morning. The carboot is a place of constant amusement and deep debate for me and my mum. The range of characters that you get there is hilariously vast and you see people that you would expect to only be imagined by the likes of the Little Britain writers. We would go a couple of a times a year with our boot loaded up with old Barbies and sparlky lights and stand in the cold from 6am. The only reason I would drag my lazy arse out of bed was my pure curiosity about the people I would meet that day, and of course the possibility of making a tenner.
The whole morning would be full of bizarre situations and people, starting with the terrifying people who would practically climb in your car as you pull up, scouting for bargains and long lost treasures to the shout of 'We don't have any gold or jewellery!' from my mum. The day always progresses in a equally unconventional way when people ask if we have any travel books on a specifically remote region in France or you get a man of about sixty strolling past in denim hot pants with matching jacket onto which he's scrawled 'LivaPool' on the back in red marker pen.
I could wander around the field all morning completely infatuated by the range of characters, clothes, accents and personalities that ritually come every week, but the one thing that I never expected to happen was to be completely moved by something that I saw every time we went but never bothered to ask about.
As we were packing up the car, getting ready to leave, I heard a loud smashing and looked round to see a blanket in front of a van with everything from suitcases and books to entire crockery sets strewn across it - anything that could be shifted for a bit of cash. At the end of the blanket two people were ruthlessly chucking piles of china plates and cutlery into black binbags. My immediate thought was 'what are they thinking?! people will buy anything here as long as it's 10p, don't throw it away!' My mum then told me that they were probably all the possessions of someone who had died with no family or people to take care of their stuff so these people turn up in a van and try to sell their whole lives, anything that doesn't get sold gets thrown.
I was shocked that someone could be so alone when they die, that people could be so harsh and brutal with their possessions, and that once everything was in binbags there would be nothing left of the person who used to be.
I want these people to be remembered. I want to know about them. I want to know what you can find out about a person by their possessions. I want to know what they left behind. I want to know the history of old people. I want to know the stories that each wrinkle tells. I want to force people to acknowledge their existence.
My inspiration for this project came from a carboot sale early one Sunday morning. The carboot is a place of constant amusement and deep debate for me and my mum. The range of characters that you get there is hilariously vast and you see people that you would expect to only be imagined by the likes of the Little Britain writers. We would go a couple of a times a year with our boot loaded up with old Barbies and sparlky lights and stand in the cold from 6am. The only reason I would drag my lazy arse out of bed was my pure curiosity about the people I would meet that day, and of course the possibility of making a tenner.
The whole morning would be full of bizarre situations and people, starting with the terrifying people who would practically climb in your car as you pull up, scouting for bargains and long lost treasures to the shout of 'We don't have any gold or jewellery!' from my mum. The day always progresses in a equally unconventional way when people ask if we have any travel books on a specifically remote region in France or you get a man of about sixty strolling past in denim hot pants with matching jacket onto which he's scrawled 'LivaPool' on the back in red marker pen.
I could wander around the field all morning completely infatuated by the range of characters, clothes, accents and personalities that ritually come every week, but the one thing that I never expected to happen was to be completely moved by something that I saw every time we went but never bothered to ask about.
As we were packing up the car, getting ready to leave, I heard a loud smashing and looked round to see a blanket in front of a van with everything from suitcases and books to entire crockery sets strewn across it - anything that could be shifted for a bit of cash. At the end of the blanket two people were ruthlessly chucking piles of china plates and cutlery into black binbags. My immediate thought was 'what are they thinking?! people will buy anything here as long as it's 10p, don't throw it away!' My mum then told me that they were probably all the possessions of someone who had died with no family or people to take care of their stuff so these people turn up in a van and try to sell their whole lives, anything that doesn't get sold gets thrown.
I was shocked that someone could be so alone when they die, that people could be so harsh and brutal with their possessions, and that once everything was in binbags there would be nothing left of the person who used to be.
I want these people to be remembered. I want to know about them. I want to know what you can find out about a person by their possessions. I want to know what they left behind. I want to know the history of old people. I want to know the stories that each wrinkle tells. I want to force people to acknowledge their existence.
I thought this piece you wrote about old people dying alone very interesting. I work in a seniors long term care home. The most bizare incident I came across was a time a woman had passed away and she had children that lived right in town and the only family that came to see her when she was dying was her grandson who drove more than 3 hours to see her. Then when she died I went into her room and her daughter-in-law's mother and father were in her room packing up her belongings and hauling them out to their car, but the sad part was the woman had just died and was still laying in her bed. The funeral home hadn't even come for her yet. I never saw a family so insensitive.
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