Physical objects hold strong emotional memories because they serve as tangible reminders of people and prior experiences, thus connecting us to our past-selves and relationships.

This piece articulates my intangible emotions and memories of my family using hand-made paper wrapping the family heirlooms I inherited from my Mum. The emotions and memories I expressed on the paper are the reasons why I can’t donate these things to a charity shop.

I kept the dust on the blue case as I felt this represented how we often treat heirlooms; we store them out of sight for years, and yet despite this, we can’t throw them away due to the intangible emotions and memories associated with them. We only get our heirlooms out when we have time and energy to manage these emotions, similar to how we manage our grief. Our treatment of heirlooms is a good allegory of how we deal with our grief.