The Museum of Modern Art is currently featuring an installation by artist Song Dong who meticulously laid out a lifetime of his mother’s hoarded possessions. These are not meaningful family heirlooms, but are squeezed out toothpaste tubes, worn out shoes and the like.
Apartment Therapy’s website described it as such:
The new installation on the main floor of the Museum of Modern Art is a public viewing of a hoarder’s life-long collection. Chinese artist Song Dong organized and displayed every item from his mother’s home, including numerous television sets, toothpaste tubes, plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, and shoes. Song Dong’s mother accumulated these items over fifty years — it was a common practice during in China when people lived the concept “waste not” (wu jin qi yong). The installation feeds our hoarder-fascination and explores cultural reasons for extreme collecting…
The impression of it all is very striking. This woman obviously had a huge problem letting go of her possessions, and one can only imagine how crowded and limiting her living conditions must have been.
I too adhere to a to a waste not philosophy, but am usually able to let go of possessions that have neither use nor meaning to me. It is part of a creative mindset to see potential in objects that others might see as garbage, and I consciously fight this inclination in myself.
Hoarding, whether it be squeezed out tubes of toothpaste, lamps or old newspaper is a serious problem that goes beyond housekeeping. Filling one’s home with excessive stuff is not only a deterrent to being able to have people over, (which then cuts down on a supportive network) but can also be a health hazard due to everything from tripping to rodentia to toxic molds.
Thank you to Fabulously Broke in the City for the info on the MOMA show.
Resources for hoarders (and those who love them) include:
Buried in Treasures: Help for Compulsive Acquiring, Saving and Collecting, by David F. Tolin.
It’s All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff, by Peter Walsh.
Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui, by Karen Kingston.
Has your life been affected by hoarding? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Katy Wolk-Stanley
“Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
12 Comments
July 9, 2009 at 8:01 am
No, I could never live like that. I have epilepsy, and I literally cannot function with alot of clutter around. My brain just “stops” for lack of a better word. I have a family member who uses the bedroom I use when visiting as storage. When I get there, I have to put alot of things in closets in the other 2 bedrooms, to get it out of my sight. Thankfully my family knows it is because of my seizures and not because I am being snotty.
I think that kind of clutter defeats any purpose, and makes your life LESS vs more.
July 9, 2009 at 11:29 am
Being a compulsive crafter, I see every little odd and end as an opportunity to create something wonderful. The trick I’ve learned (and am still learning) is to figure out what will be useful soon, what might be useful later but is too valuable to let go, and what is simply cluttering my life.
July 9, 2009 at 12:14 pm
My profound sympathies to the MOMA artist, who plainly had to clean out his mother’s living quarters and just snapped at some point. Having had to do the same for both my mother and my mother-in-law in the last 5 years, I definitely feel for him. And having passed the 5-0 mark some time back–and being acutely aware that I have no children to do a similar cleanout for me–I am being MUCH more careful about what I keep.
July 9, 2009 at 6:32 pm
My parents (both 70-ish) are both hoarders….several years ago my sister and I cleared out my tiny childhood bedroom that my mom had filled with stuff (unreturned library books, piles of old mail, tons of gifts she received and never used, household decorations). It took several days, and several loads of stuff went to the Salvation Army, but I think we ended up filling about 50 (yes 50) large black plastic garbage bags and dumping them in the trash….we “snapped” and got tired of making decisions about what to donate, trash, keep, etc. And guess what, about 5 years later the room was filled with stuff again! If the hoarder is still hoarding it’s a losing battle. My sister and I threaten to “light a match” to all my parent’s stuff after they’re gone!
July 9, 2009 at 7:36 pm
Jessie, what a great tip about “what will be useful soon”…soon being the operative word! I often keep odd caps and corks, since I make a lot of flavored vinegars and because I put them in various recycled bottles, never know what size the bottle tops will be. But with this new tip, I will look hard at what I’ve got stashed away already–and keep only what are the likely sizes, to be used soon.
Hoarding does have serious ramifications. Our mother kept everything, everything! Which meant we could not find anything: not important documents, valuable jewelry, or even everyday useful items. As she got older, the piles of stuff filled up rooms and even partial doorways, which is dangerous. Chaos engulfed her life. Needless to say, cleaning out her house after she died was not fun for her children. In response to this, I try to be very conscious of what I’m leaving my kids to deal with. I am constantly sorting, rearranging and reorganizing. But being a thrift store junkie, only for useful stuff, you understand–I still have too much stuff, even if my doorways are clear ; )
July 9, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I have cleaned out my parents house after their deaths and it was draining. The smell of moldy closets with the sadness and loss were too much to bear.
I try real hard to give away, toss, or recycle 10 items every day. I am working on this for 21 days+ -to try and form the habit. This is difficult since I love books.
I have lose friends who are hoarders and it spills into every area of their life. It is limiting.
Whenever I get weak and want to store things, I read anything written by Peter Walsh. He is inspiring.
July 10, 2009 at 3:48 am
I battle with stuff and clutter everyday of my life. I live in a small house with my husband and two children and stuff piles up every single day. I don’t have enough time in a lifetime to go through all the paper and little-things-without-homes. I guess I should just get rid of it, but something stops me! I’ve read books with a Buddhist theme and get all inspired but then I just can’t part with the stuff. I’ll have dreams about things I have given away and realize I might have some regret over giving it away. What is the psychology behind it???
October 13, 2009 at 5:36 am
Sandy,
First, my compassion for your situation. I know personally how difficult it can be to get rid of things. In trying to understand what was going on with a friend who hoards, I read everything I could find on the web regarding “why.” What turned up is that for 70% of hoarders, it is associated with loss or grief. Trying to comfort oneself with belongings, trying to hold on to memories. That is a hard one. “Buried in Treasures,” listed above, is a beautiful and compassionate book for helping people with these challenges, and their loved ones who want to help them. The first rule for well intended loved ones: never touch or take anything from someone who has this challenge; respect their right to decide. Ask the loved one whether the collecting is supporting their goals of having a nice liveable healthy home, being able to clean, have friends over, not have family arguments about the clutter, let go of the stress of it all, etc.
The book “Organizing from the Inside Out” recommends removing everything from one small space (such as a desk or closet), grouping similar items (this helps to see how many of an item one owns, which can make it easier to discard the excess), purging obviously broken, useless, or unwanted items, and then selecting the items one needs or loves, then creating a designated “home” for each item.
It also helps to recognize the limits of one’s home, each room, closet, etc. Homes can only sanitarily hold so much. So when deciding in the above process what to keep, try giving yourself a space limit, such as one drawer for office supplies, one jewel box, or one file cabinet. Then choose the most loved or needed items for it.
Finally, Peter Walsh recommends honoring the special things we love by giving them a prominent home, such as mounting on a wall or creating a display on a shelf or mantle, or placing in a memory album. This might bring comfort making it easier to let go of less important items. These can be photographed before given away. As you go through your home, start a box for collecting keepsakes to choose from to honor.
For paper, try putting big recycling bags or boxes everywhere you have lots of paper, and especially at the front door to prevent incoming needless paper. The bigger and more plentiful the wastebaskets, the tidier the home.
For whole boxes of old papers, ask yourself, are you ever really going to use them? Especially with all of the other paper in your home? If necessary, rifle through a box, identify paper to shred, and a few of the most important papers, then shred that sucker! If it will take a lifetime to simply go through all the paper, how will you have time to actually use that much? If you had the time and inclination, you already would have. Give yourself your life back and shred, shred, shred. Get yourself a shredder if you want. You deserve a better life than to spend it crowded, overwhelmed, and depressed by old paper. You will feel more free with every paper you let go. It is exhilarating. (I’ve just finished a massive, years-long slow paper busting.)
Here’s how to get through paper stacks quickly: write these phrases on index cards (one on each card): Do, Read, File, Toss (Recycle), Shred, One-Sided Reuseable Paper, Enter Into Computer.
Then make your bed, spread the cards out on the bed, take a 1″ stack of papers, and without reading them, except to see what each is, put each paper next to the appropriate index card, to sort the stack into groups. Then you can toss the Toss pile all at once! What a feeling. Then shred the Shred pile (I love shredding into tiny strips – gets all the pent up feelings out of blasting through this exercise!), put the One Sided Reuseable paper in your printer; I highly recommend tossing the Read pile (if you really wanted to read it, you would have by now, and there’s always more reading coming in), and put your Do pile neatly on your desk. When done, you can prioritize the pile and work through it.
For the File pile, look in your file cabinet or file box, and write down a list of the names of all your file folders. Write the name of each folder on an index card, then sort your File stack into file categories, just as you did the original stack.
Do this every few days, til you’re done. You will see and feel a pleasurable difference after each session. Clutterbusting soon becomes a passion and way of life. Best wishes!
July 10, 2009 at 4:47 am
My father has this severe problem and my neighbor suffers as well. My neighbor cannot have anyone in her house as it’s so bad.
*sigh* this recalls a real mess for the future for me and my siblings!
I pray for those fighting this insidious disease of thrift gone too far.
July 10, 2009 at 7:02 am
I was along for the experience as my husband and his siblings cleared out his mother’s home of many years before she moved to an assisted living home. Not only was her home packed with “stuff” that she felt was still useful and valuable–she was adamant that nothing should be thrown away or donated–because it was all such “good stuff.” We all had to split it up, take it home, and USE it. I see now, in retrospect, that there were two or three strong forces at play in her accumulation of an incredible amount and variety of things. 1. As a child and young person during the depression, saving things and using them up was deeply ingrained in her. The idea that something could be consumable/one use/throw-away was totally alien. 2. As a person who worked hard all her life, each object, large or small, represented part of that hard work and lifetime of earning. 3. She “treasured” many of the small conveniences of everyday life–plastic measuring medicine cups that came (FREE!!!) with cough syrup, aluminum pie tins (FREE!!!) from the bottom of store-bought pies, plastic tableware that came (FREE!!!) at a company picnic–to such an extent that she washed, sorted and kept it all. Because it was all such GOOD stuff.
So that was about 6 years ago (she died last year), and I have slowly but surely winnowed out of our share of “stuff” the few things I wanted, and donated the bulk of what remained. She had a lifetime collection of irons from her mother’s and her own life. Did you know there were once KEROSENE-FUELED irons? She had one. These went to a museum.
I’ve donated “stuff” to local schools, senior centers, vacation bible schools, crafters, family, friends, etc. And when I bake and take pie or cookies–I use those crazy aluminum pie tins, pass them on, and say a quick prayer for Mom Vera. I think I’m actually down to less than 3 dozen tins, God bless her.
July 10, 2009 at 10:54 am
I too struggle with this issue. My Gramma grew up during the depression & saves everything…including the wrapper from the cheeseburger she ate last night (“It’s a good piece of paper”)…I kid you not. We moved in with her 2 years ago & I still work on getting rid of stuff. With the progression of her Alzheimers disease, her hoarding tendencies have intensified so I have to sneak stuff in to the trash & giveaway boxes & hide it all. Since she raised me, I’m also fighting this battle for myself. I recently watched a movie called, “7 Dumpters and a Corpse”. Two brothers had to clear out their mothers small apartment after years of her hoarding & collecting and during the movie, try to come to terms with the reasons behind her compulsion. The movie starts out with them trying to find a company that will come to scrape what is left of her body off of the floor…she was dead for a long time before anyone knew, hidden amongst all that stuff. Adding to my own problem is that it seems like as soon as I get rid of something, I find a use or need for it. Example: My husband finally convinced me to get rid of 3 baby gates we had when the kids were little (they are now 16 & 11). Not a month went by before I realized I need them now to keep Gramma out of certain rooms in the house & to keep her from going out the front door. I went ahead & bought one new one but will wait on the others until I can find them from freecycle or the thrift store. Wouldn’t you know, the thrift store we donated them to had already sold them!
July 15, 2009 at 5:11 am
New York Times article about this installation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/arts/design/15song.html?pagewanted=1&ref=global-home
Nuanced and poignant.