ABSTRACT
On an everyday basis, collecting is a way of dealing with the tensions between human mortality and object immortality. If we can objectify ourselves through collections, we feel we have materially realised an inner vision, and somehow transposed apart of ourselves into them, which future generations will find self-evident. Collections can become immortal children whose inanimate nature ensures they will not question or fail uso We then perceive them as taking something of ourselves into the future. More altruistically, some collections are formed simply because no one else has done so. It is therefore feit that the collection needs forming for posterity for this reason alone. In this sense, collecting becomes a social mission, a gift to future generations, who will be more enlightened and see the collection's importance, even if only ridicule or indifference meet it in the present.
