ABOUT

EVERY THING WE TOUCH is a project that explores the idea that we can make sense of people’s lives by viewing the objects they touch throughout a day. 

From the items found in our homes, to the tools we use at work, we surround ourselves with objects necessary for our existence in todays world. But these needs are huge and diverse - they range from survival and performance to compensation and caring, emotional attachment and self-expression. 

We felt the urge to document our current interaction with these objects. Many of the things we know about from past civilisations are from insights gathered through their objects. Their tools, utensils, clothes, manuscripts and art have taught us about the work they did, what they hunted, grew and ate and how they dressed or expressed themselves. Will ours do the same?

Driven by this idea, we travelled around the world to find people from an incredible array of ages, cultures, professions and backgrounds. We asked them to document every object they touched within 24 hours. Then we gathered those objects together, laid them all out chronologically (in the order of when they were touched) on a canvas measuring 4 x 2.7 meters and photographed them in one shot. Permanent objects such as door handles and light switches or large items like cars or sofas were excluded.