Artifacts collected by the deceased represent a life lived; items such as keys, dried flowers, matchbooks, broken ornaments, ticket stubs, and expired documents filled each cocoon. These collections possess sentimental value and hold memories of events and passages significant to their collector. As those left behind attempt to reconstruct stories from these possessions, the object’s meaning migrates and transforms.

 

These memento repositories are used in community engagement projects to help grievers transform sweet and painful memories into praise. Creating a repository for the objects provides a sense of control, externalizing complex emotions into an art object and expanding options for healing.