"Since I unintentionally became the owner of a condominium at the age of ten, I have constantly felt the pressure that it exerts on me: On the one hand, I can be infinitely happy about my father's inheritance, but on the other hand, I have grown up without my second parent as a result and feel obliged to live in this apartment and look after it," writes Farina Michelle in the introduction to her book "Stand der Dinge", with which she graduated from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg. It deals typographically with a person's potential legacy.
She has now lived in her apartment for eleven years, surrounded by material things that evoke immaterial memories and have accompanied her through several subjects, relationships and achievements. The decision to list all of her possessions for her final thesis was driven on the one hand by her great passion for typography, which is reflected in accurate lists in a special way; she uses the Atlas Grotesk in interplay with the Atlas Typewriter Regular. On the other hand, a genuine interest in individual possessions:
"Visiting people in their homes, whether for five minutes at an EBay classifieds sale or for longer periods of time, fascinates me because the things that surround you say so much about someone."
Farina Michelle Goffelmeyer
The first part of the work is a kind of overview: What relationships can people have with their objects, what do these say about them? How do the objects relate to each other and how is their classification system organized? The cataloging takes on another level in the second part of the book, when the author typographically presents her subjective emotions towards her possessions and invites readers into her emotional world. Visualized by black boxes in different sizes, she depicts the respective relationship to the objects and creates cross-references throughout the book.
This snapshot juxtaposes the bureaucratic work of an estate curator compiling lists with her personal, almost intimate memories. Her thesis is also interspersed with facts relating to the question of private property. The average German citizen, for example, is said to own around 10,000 items. When the local court appoints an estate administrator to gain access to a home, they first secure so-called "valuables" and search for any will that may be available. "When entering the home for the first time, many experienced estate curators can deduce what a person might have been like or what their everyday life might have been like," writes Farina Michelle.
In juxtaposition with her own life situation, she refers to the graphic artist Christian Lange, for example, who published the book "Lange Liste 79-97" in 2011 based on his mother's household accounts, or the "Archive of the Unwanted", a work by Katharine Watzlawick, which traces Western consumer society in tabular form through EBay classified ads.
Farina Michelle received the top grade of 1.0 for her work and now works independently, specializing in editorial and corporate design. Which works, book projects and memorabilia have been added to her personal list since graduating?
Click here for Farina Michelle's portfolio.
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