Nicholas Christakis: Junk Drawer
07.17.26 – 09.05.26
Opening Reception: Friday, July 17, 7-10PM
Junk Drawer is part photographic study of two types of obsolete cameras and part assemblage of found objects and discarded ephemera. The cameras at the center of the project are consumer grade point-and-shoot digital cameras from the 2000s and Hi8 analog video camcorders from the 1990s. The photographs are presented as large-scale arrays, organizing hundreds of low-quality captures into careful grids, while the video and found objects are assembled into an interactive sculpture—a junk drawer—that combines photo, video, and sound.
The immediacy of point-and-shoot digital cameras and videotape encourage a mode of image making driven by instinct rather than precision. Their limitations invite an ease of letting go, allowing fleeting moments to be crystalized without the pressure of technical perfection. Together, the photographs, videos, and collected ephemera explore passing moments of beauty and faded memory embedded within chaos and decay. They reflect on the subjects and experiences that quietly slip into obscurity, fated to be forgotten.
The project is also autobiographical. It documents the overlooked details of everyday life from recent years while revisiting childhood through nostalgia evoking scenes, personal mementos, and the pairing of archival Hi8 home videos from the artist's childhood with Hi8 footage recorded in adulthood. This connection of past and present is further explored through the continued use of the same media technologies that shaped the artist's childhood. A dialogue that blurs the boundaries between memory and documentation, fueled by an obsession with nostalgia and an impulse toward relentless observation.
While the work can be understood through several overlapping themes, its central concern is the tension between childhood and adulthood. Junk Drawer resists the expectation of leaving childhood behind, instead inhabiting the uneasy space between childlike wonder and the dread of growing up.
