Negotiated Final Major Project : Auntie Katie

So like I have previously mentioned I have been asking everybody and anybody about there memory boxes or anything they may collect. I have surprisingly noticed that my finding so far are generally gender based . I have asked , friends , family members , work colleges and the majority of women said yes to keeping some form of memory box and to date I have only come across one man who has . My uncle Time has kept a memory box from when he travelled the world working on cruse ships .I would like to look into this gender division further later in my project .

Below is a selected amount of objects kept in my Aunty Katie's memory box. After finding the work of Jon Crispin photographing the possessions of the patents of the insane asylum I thought about dissecting memory boxes further. I viewed my aunties memory box and asked her to select her favourite objects . If these were locked away for years how do they portray her ?

She has picked the following 11 items. I am wondering if her items are themed , mine memory box is themed around my teenage years and experiences. Hers seems to be mainly preserving childhood .

Whilst photographing the chosen items my auntie had the same reaction as me and felt the need to tell story's around the objects. I should have gotten her to write them in her own words but instead I have written a sentence on each , the bit I remembered . Still think my work is lacking in human presence , this project is so personal and emotive I feel I need to introduce more components to my images so they are not just objects.