I’ve been digging through my notes from the past few semesters in search of thesis inspiration that I may have overlooked. Found this from one of our early workshops with Anne West. She asked us to write a one-page, stream of conscious piece on a term that is central to our thesis. Here is what I wrote:

Ephemera is ’stuff.’ It’s the loose leaf, trinkety, gadgety un-curated memorabilia that is meant for use in the short term. The word shares the same roots as ephemeral, which connotes fleeting, temporal, limited. But when ephemera is collected and stored, cataloged and coveted, it becomes something else. It gains a physicality and legitimacy by virtue of having been re-contextualized by its holder. It takes on symbolic stature, representing a moment shared, a brief encounter, an experience. Meaning is bestowed upon these discards, toss-aways, one-time, single-use documents, ticket stubs, pamphlets, cards, playbills, train schedules, menus, paper containers, adverts, posters, leaflets, flyers, take-ones, leave behinds.

Ephemera is rooted in time then, often mass-produced and distributed. The ubiquity of ephemera suggests an automatic lack of value, as that which exists in large quantity is not be considered rare nor worthy of resale. But over time, ephemera becomes rarified by its very nature—most copies are discarded or destroyed, leaving only those with embodied value in their absence.