Re(-)collect

nothing

Concept and editing: Monique Scuric

Design: Hans Gremmen / Text: Nicolaas Matsier / Translation: David Colmer

15 x 21 cm / 96 pages / Swiss binding / 500 numbered copies

From 2006 up to 2008 Monique Scuric collected photos of belongings of the deceased, offered on a popular Dutch website where people can advertise and sell used goods. She found photos of living rooms that had been emptied, chairs that no one wanted, slippers in a corner, fallen photo frames, emptied-out drawers, a bed with the caption ‘the deceased did not die in this bed’.

The photos suggest a life story, whilst at the same time they echo with emptiness and estrangement. There is a particular uniformity in the style of these photos, and surprisingly the objects offered are more or less the same type of things. The bare way in which they are photographed conjures up images of the bereaved while emptying a house and their desire not to consider the material remains as worthless.

The book Re(-)collect is designed in collaboration with the graphic designer Hans Gremmen. Throughout the book, the pages range in sphere from the poetic to the documentary, with the list of contents - the objects offered for sale, catalogued in their separate categories - sobering. A portion from Nicolaas Matsier’s novel ‘Closed house’ is reprinted. Here he describes in a personal and pictorial manner how he set about emptying his recently deceased mother’s house.