Odds and Ends

For one year, walking the streets of Delhi, Segard collected whatever the city left on the ground — a bottle cap, a strip of foil, a cigarette filter, a shard of glass. Each object was sealed in a jar and labelled with the date it was found, and the jars accumulated in the living room of a Delhi apartment, on shelves built from discarded wood gathered the same way.

The following year the jars were exhibited at the inauguration of the Rose Hotel, Delhi. On the night of the opening each one was offered for sale at 365 rupees — one rupee for every day spent collecting — with a certificate of authenticity and a promise: keep it until the artist becomes famous, and its value will rise a hundredfold. Sixteen years later, a dozen jars still sit on shelves in other people’s homes. The artist has not become famous; the jars have not risen in value. Sometimes collecting something leads to nothing.