Hoarding and Archives

I just finished watching an episode of TLC's new show Hoarding: Buried Alive. It competes with A&E's Hoarders, another show focussed on the mental disorder of compulsive hoarding. Both shows focus on people who collect mass amounts of items and refuse to throw these things away. Their hoarding leads to unsanitary and dangerous situations, and in some cases, the hoarding threatens to tear families apart. In a way, these hoarders think much like famous archivists, collecting everything they see. However, with one person in a cluttered home, the organization is lost, and what is left is a sad and desperate scene. These people collect old newspaper and magazines, noting their historic value as a complete volume or other various "excuses." It is my belief, though, that if they let an archival artist into one of these home, he or she would leave with half of the things. Many of the items these people collect are products and collectibles that define our culture. From the box of baseball cards to the complete set of Hess Collectible Trucks, these items paint a picture of Americana that is rarely found in one location. Unfortunately, that location is usually a cooped up house with an angry family and piles of "American culture" blocking the door.

What drives these people, however, is what truly interests me, for this show made clear the fact that American advertisers want us to hoard. As a hoarder in the show stated (and I paraphrase), "I saw these dinner plates and I just pictured us using them at Thanksgiving." They ended up unused in a pile of her stuff, but that picture is what American companies want. They sell us the picture of an American Thanksgiving to sell dinner plates or the picture of the American life made easy with a new broom. These pictures they paint are the desired America, and in the attempt to paint that picture in our own lives, we archive American life.

So does hoarding have value? Well, if we call up artists before we raid these homes, then yes. Most the stuff is thrown away or sold, but what if it was organized in a museum? The regular American home does not possess the merchandise to represent a broad American image, but a hoarder's home has that capability. Don't get me wrong, I am not promoting this as it really is a sickness, but the best ideas come from turning problems into solutions, and I think this is a solution.