collections and the charity shop

Got up late today had two crumpets with Marmite and a boiled egg. Looked out from my kitchen window at a Blackbird patrolling the garden, intimidating every other visiting bird who tries to enter its territory.

Whilst listening to The Archers, I was thinking about collections and the museum context. I realised this was what was underlying my recent interest in taking photographs of charity shops windows in Stockbridge, on my recent visit to Edinburgh.

The charity shop window display attempts to mimic any other shop window, it gives the 'viewer' a glimpse of greater things, a taste of what might be to come when you set foot over the threshold.

Usually the best objects are on display on the glass shelves or vitrines and in some cases you have to come back on a special day to purchase your treasure from the window.

The collections in the charity shops are always in transition, the fingerprints on glasses never remaining the same. Objects are part of a random collection that have been 'passed on' or been discarded. There is no order, no accession number but often a tag or label, mostly no hint of their provinance, unless they are placed in the 'special vitrine, centre stage' near the counter.

Mugs from the 1970's sit next to a white porcelain teacup, sitting next to an embroidered panel in a frame saying home is where the heart is.