A Room of Found Objects

The apartment is two rooms and a kitchen, and every object in it was found: on the street, at flea markets, in skips, in the back rooms of shops that were closing. Its owner, a set designer who asked us not to use her name, has been collecting for twenty years.

"I don't buy anything new," she says. "Not out of principle. It's just that new things don't have anything to say yet."

The rule, if there is one, is that everything gets used. The ceramic bowls hold keys and fruit. The industrial lamp, rescued from a printing works, is the only light in the bedroom. The chairs are all different and all sat in.

When we leave, she hands us a small brass hook she found that morning. "Put it somewhere you'll see it," she says. It is on the wall by my desk as I write this.