Ruin and Racoon-feeding: collages of constantly shifting temporal matter, from Merzbau to Grey Gardens

The impermanent and destabilising nature of a hoard could be said to create a narrative skin – a personally constructed variable space within a more logical, physical realm. This paper looks at two hoard-like environments and questions the pathologising of over-collection. Using the examples of Kurt Schwitters’ ‘Merzbau’ (1938) and the eponymous home at the centre of the Maysles Brothers’ film Grey Gardens (1976), the psychopathology of hoarding will be examined through the lens of collective perceptions of chaotic space. Zoë Mendelson’s research engages disorder as a culturally produced phenomenon, in parallel to its clinical counterpart.

Conference paper for 'Beyond Pattern and Chaos' at Norwich University of the Arts on 5 September 2018.