THE BIRD I HELD IN MY HAND
We all hang onto little totems of past relationships as a kind of symbolic tether to the relationship itself. Every love letter or photograph or ticket stub secreted away in the back of a drawer rekindles the story of how you came to have it: the day you and X went here, saw this, tasted that, the laughter or tears or raised voices that linger in your memory. They’re a connection to the “who” you were in the wisps of a capital-Y Yesterday. But why do we keep them? What is this “why” that keeps us looking backward? That keeps us holding on to the past?
The Bird I Held in My Hand is a study of emotionally resonant, kept objects. I’m interested in both how their owners acquired them, but also, and more importantly, why they’ve kept them.
The subjects interviewed and the stories they share are of my own invention — they’re scripted and their voices, including my own, are performed by actors.
As to the wider questions, you’ll likely notice that I have no clear answers. Whether we hold on to the past, believing our memories integral to self and identity, or whether this clinging is part of some unexpressed wish to create a “better yesterday”, I couldn’t tell you.