We are people of accumulation, and therefore, ironically, of waste

Come trace with me a geography of displacement, where every border crossed became a threshold between holding and releasing. This is an investigation of my self self, excavated through the objects I chose to carry and those I dared to abandon.

Mapping Becoming

Since leaving Lebanon in 2012, my life has unfolded as a series of sediments, each city depositing a layer of wisdom about the nature of possession.

• Dubai Between relentless construction and the vanishing desert, I learned my first lesson in permanence.

• Los Angeles revealed accumulation as a horizontal sprawl. Its freeways mapped dreams across an urban desert, and I found myself scattered across "27 different experiences calling themselves LA.

• New York City delivered me into a density of the human condition. Here, accumulation meant an accumulation of people — stories piled in after-hour conversations on fire escapes and disappointments carried in the last cars of long subway rides. The mantra, "If you see something, say something," felt ironic in a place where everyone was too busy surviving to speak up.

• The Hudson Valley Offered me stillness after the hustle and bustle of the buzzing city, re-acclimatising my mind to the seasons

• Maine’s rugged coastline stripped away all pretense. The ocean, a big body of water that reminded me of the Mediterranean, a familiar anchor from Lebanon.

• Saint Catharines, Ontario, was a gentle embrace alongside hyphenated identities. In this Canadian border city, I witnessed a different kind of accumulation: working-class and white-collar dreams echoing their original cultures.

• Southern Arizona, Here, the mighty saguaro cactus grows slowly, storing water for lean seasons, outliving its companions.

A Cabinet of Relational Curiosities

Each of these places offered its people as gifts. These encounters now rest in what I am calling a Cabinet of Relational Curiosities — an imaginary box that is my portable homeland.

Inside are figurines from cherished connections, prints capturing magical moments and seeds from seed banks and gardens. Transitional talismans, artifacts that crystallize past conversations. Vessels of meaning.

The Sacred and Profane Act of Release

With every arrival at a place came an inevitable departure, and with every departure, a spiritual accounting. What should i hold on, and what should i release?

My furniture — and i am a proud owner of vintage IKEA furniture - for example a lamp that witnessed my late reading sessions, the almost Wedgewood blue plates i found at Goodwill that served countless meals, all found new lives with International university students. I watched those kids load a part of my familiarity into their U-Hauls, their excitement palpable as they inherited the promise of belonging. When it came to books, those demanded deeper sacrifices. To release books for someone like me who cherished every written bit, was to acknowledge that this self who collected Rumi and Toni Morrison, who dog-eared bell hooks and Tom Robbins, was materially dissolving. Letting go of part of my library over and over taught me a paradoxical freedom. The library I had built over years cyclically dissolved. Its most nourishing contents migrating from my shelves to my neural pathways. The books' wisdom had already transformed me.

My living room - Tucson, Arizona, 2025

The Paradox of Possession

As a ceramic artist, I work with clay, gravity and meaning, where every object becomes a holder for more than liquids, grains or flowers. Accumulation, in my practice, transcends gathering of "things" — that into realms of memory, connection, and metaphysical presence that resist easy categorization.

Each piece that emerges from my studio reflects my making process , clay is honest that way: the intimacy of my hands shaping wet clay, my discerning eye that designed its surface, the specific time of day and quality of light that witnessed its formation. A bowl also bears the maker's emotional state, the studio's temperature, the music being played, all in hindsight are careful considerations. These impressions accumulate like layers of meaning.

The ceramic process itself embodies accumulation's complex dance. Clay gathers into form through deliberate addition — coils twist and climb, walls stretch, surfaces are ornate — yet each addition demands strategic subtraction. Too much water creates structural weakness; too little leaves a vessel unable to bend into fulfilling its intended purpose. Ceramic artists/potters accumulate knowledge: of pressure, timing, balance, learning precisely when to stop, when to further intervene. Glazing adds another stratum of accumulated consideration, with fine metals and minerals building toward a vision that remains almost uncertain until the firing is complete.

Then comes the kiln, where accumulation meets its ultimate test in ancient alchemy. High temperatures dissolve some carefully gathered elements while crystallizing others, reminding us that everything transforms with energy. This process mirrors human development: we accumulate experiences, relationships, and knowledge, but only what integrates authentically with our essential nature survives life's repeated firings.

To accumulate is to engage with and to accept responsibility for these processes and stories. When i get a piece of ceramics, when I place that handmade cup on my shelf, I see myself a custodian of its maker's intention, guardian of the care and wisdom invested in its creation. This responsibility extends beyond the object to the entire network of relationships it represents: that special mentor who shared glazing techniques in a Brooklyn studio, the colleague who fired a piece of mine in their soda kiln, the community studio matriarch who demonstrated how paper-thin slabs could create beautiful tea sets. Each piece carries a breath of freshness, knowledge and connection, making its owner part of my ongoing conversations. And what a privilege this has been!

Museums understand this custodial relationship, funneling vast resources to preserving accumulated human experience. Private accumulation faces an added challenge. How do I honor objects' stories while preventing my home from becoming mausoleums of stuff? Maybe the line between collecting and hoarding is in that relationship's quality — whether accumulation enhances creative movement or stifles it. .

Neglected objects transform into waste, their journey to the dumpster is delayed but also inevitable. Being at ceramic studios we understand this lesson brutally: shelves fill with test pieces, failed experiments, abandoned projects that once held promise dry up. Clay's patience eventually expires; unfired greenware cracks, dries beyond salvage, and accumulates dust that obscures original intentions.

What we gather for meaning - besides our quality if interaction with it - also becomes meaningless through accumulation in excess. The hundredth ceramic vessel made for a consumer holds less significance than the first, not because its creation required less skill, but because our appreciative attention dilutes across multiplying objects.

In Summary

Each relocation served as an audit conducted through my possessions and my relationships. Moving stripped away my comfort with the illusion of permanence, forcing me to confront accumulated bits of identity that had settled in corners, drawers, and forgotten storage boxes. Each packing session became a form of excavation, a celebration and a memorial of an every changing self.

Every decision to keep or let go of something involves micro-enlightenment: small recognitions of how identity solidifies around objects and dissolves when those objects disappear. I, who owned these things, feel both intimately familiar and strangely distant, like viewing childhood photographs where my face is recognizable but the consciousness behind the eyes seems to belong to someone else entirely.

We accumulate objects and experiences, relationships, beliefs, and identities, building a sense of solid selfhood from inherently transient materials. Objects become external symbols of internal accumulation, visible representations of invisible processes of growth, change, and evolution. Their weight in boxes parallels the weight of experiences and habits we carry with us.

Moving teaches that personhood itself is another form of accumulation, subject to the same considerations of weight and lightness, meaning and burden, that characterize our relationship with material possessions. Just as we must periodically release objects that no longer serve our present reality, we must also release outdated aspects and versions of ourselves, allowing old skin to shed so new ones can be revealed.

What is Enough?

No, really...what is enough? How much must i gather to feel rooted without becoming imprisoned by my belongings?

About this Investigation

Etel Adnan's haunting insight that "We are people of accumulation, and therefore, ironically, of waste" summoned me to reckon with my material and existential legacy. My journey through houses, objects, and memories maps this condition's poignant complexity.