This project began because a collective I belong to, The Ludlow Peculiars, planned to put on a variety show in a local church. I wanted to contribute something book art-related to the show, and came up with this museum in a suitcase, in which I collected some of my artist’s books and objects. For the performance, I walked into the church carrying the museum and set it upright on a table, opening it to reveal its contents. I spoke the following words roughly as they appear here, while opening and unfolding the various books and objects in the museum. At the bottom of the suitcase there is a Shaw and Blake embossing press, which audience members could use to stamp a card as a souvenir of their visit.

Welcome to the Museum of thoughts. Here I have collected my artefacts of the mind.

Time seems to move relentlessly onwards, but the objects in this museum remain fixed.

Each time you recall a memory, it changes. You can try to pin it under glass, record its characteristics. But each time you remember, you forget a little more.

But at least if you can see its little body preserved in a display, you know that it’s real, don’t you?

You hold a book in your hands, turn it over. Its weight is real, surely. You flick through the pages, and each one flutters against your thumb as it passes. Each of these sheets must be real, but no sooner have you felt its little flicker touch your skin than the moment has passed. You know that you must have touched each one of the pages, but the only memory you now have is a general impression of the soft beating of wings.

Some thoughts are so light it seems like they might float up into the sky. And when you think them it seems like you might float up, too.

Other thoughts are heavy like earth. Some stick to you like burdock, and sometimes they evade capture like a little insect you are trying to catch between your hands.

Thank you for visiting the museum, you are welcome to come and look more closely at the display during the interval. The gift shop is currently closed due to an ongoing staff shortage but you may collect a stamp on your way out.