Secondhand Culture

The relatively stable aesthetic of Fordist modernism has given way to the all ferment,instability,fleeting qualities of post-modernist aesthetic that celebrates difference, ephemerality, spectacle, fashion, and the commodification of cultural forms.

(Harvey 1989:156)

Objects of the past do not necessarily continue to have the same meanings as they did to past generations and owners, and they have no specific meaning unless we invest meaning in them. Artifacts are constantly evolving depending on their symbolic attachment and designated use. Old hierarchies are not held in such esteem now and are often seen to be social construction. As Susan Pearce says, 




objects embody human purposes, experiences and they invite us to act towards them in ways which may or may not give us what we desire. Objects have a physicality, they  take up space and can therefore be organised in different forms.




It is easy to accumulate stuff, or to give it away,passing on from owner to owner. The life of an object not unlike our own, when we are new, getting older and finally broken. Objects become woven into our lives and become part of who we are.This can be seen can be viewed as the presence of the past being being brought into the physical present. If we take a sixteen century vase and place it a  twentieth century home it will still be a sixteen century vase and still have the same historical connotations but it will be viewed in quite a different manner as the new owner will have their own reinterpretation of the object. How can you put a value on an item? At one end of the scale we have junk, rubbish , stuff and kitsch at the other antiques and heirlooms.

Martin(1999) suggests that we may collect these things to console us for our loss of what we perceive to be identity and worth in a world that no longer holds these things sacred. It is a method of holding on to the things that we believe matter from the past.The collection of objects being a way of elevating our anxieties and fears.

There is also another good reason in this day and age to acquire secondhand goods, and that is for reacquisition. Nowadays it is quite possible for goods to go through the stages of acquisition, possession, dispossession and reacquisition, giving us an ethical and meaningful consumption.