HOW CONFRONTING:
everything I touched in 24 hours (okay, almost everything)
Recently, May pointed me to a piece about a brilliant project called Everything We Touch: A 24-Hour Inventory of Our Lives. As the name suggests: everything you touch in 24 hours, you bundle into one photo. I wouldn't be myself if I didn't want to try that.
Okay, maybe not everything I touched today is in the photo (a train, toilet handle, and car are hard to capture in one shot) but almost all daily items that fit in a bag are definitely there. The project was conceived by Argentine creative Paula Zuccotti, who claims to have always been obsessed with the relationship between humans and objects. It's bizarre to see what kind of items slip through our fingers daily without us really noticing. Because what do all the things we use say about us, for example? Meanwhile, Paula's method has become hugely popular and she asks various people to document their day in this intensive way. Okay, let’s do this.
07:00 AM. I wake up and my 24 hours begin. I first touch - of course - my phone to turn off the alarm. I grab my slippers (object 2), put my hair in a ponytail (number 3), and put on my pajama pants as I walk to the shower (4 – okay, this is already going fast today). I step into the shower, wash my hair with shampoo (5) and conditioner (6), and then lather myself with shower foam (7). I dry off with a towel (8) and put on my lingerie (9 and 10), tights (11), a dress (12), and heels (13). Then comes probably the most intense list of the day: my makeup. I immediately feel embarrassed when I look at the contents of my makeup bag and then realize what on earth I’m going to touch. Here it comes: day cream, serum, foundation (two different ones), blush, eyeliner, eyebrow pencil, Labello, eyelash curler, and mascara. Ten products, mind you. Then I put on my glasses. That brings the total to 24. Next, I touch So. Incredibly. Many. products that I’m not going to bore you with all the numbers. I pack my suitcase with all my belongings for four days at my boyfriend's and walk like a loaded donkey towards the station. I buy a croissant there (was already gone immediately, so couldn't get it in the photo), smoke a cigarette, drink mint tea, top up my public transport card, get on the train, taxi, and arrive at the editorial office of Amayzine, a.k.a. ’the redac‘. I drink ten cups of tea, eat a real champagne macaron (I already love this editorial office), have cords from computers and iPhones in my hands, cameras, I touch May's ridiculously beautiful Dolce shoes and let all sorts of trinkets lying around on the desks slip through my fingers. Add to that all the items from lunch and you come to a number over two, three hundred, believe me. In the evening, I also have a press dinner, where I can hardly steal the dishes for the photo. Although, everything for a good story, of course. I hand out business cards, touch Japanese chopsticks, eat sushi, sit with way too many glasses of wine, and at the end of the day, I collapse into the train. At home, I have another cup of tea to wrap up, and then my challenge is already over. Thank god, because exhausting, it really was.
When I look at the photo now, I find it fas-ci-na-ting to see how all my belongings that I touched today are systematically arranged. It's almost therapeutic to look at your ‘day’ from a helicopter view. Then suddenly the thought crosses my mind how many bacteria I must have touched today. No, Kiek. Don't do it.
