Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts

Collection of Memories: Christi Lan Lin’s Children’s Textile Collection

On Collecting

At what point does an object become more than just an object, but a thing that has a story, an emotion, even an energetic hum when you hold it in your hands?　How many things does it take to form a collection?  How does a collector curate, organize, and archive her collection? 

I was so honored to have been invited by the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts to give a talk about my mother, the collector.  This talk has inspired me to ask her these questions in earnest.  I have long been familiar with my mother’s keen eye for the singularity of certain objects – the way she can tease out the thing-ness of these objects and place them in a context that allows their cultural weight to be felt.  But I had never asked her about the origins of her collecting, how she became a collector, and what her process looks like. 

Getting up close

On the day of the talk, we were able to hand carry pieces from the collection - some of them never-before-exhibited - from Taipei to Kaohsiung, so that attendees could get a close-up view of the textiles.