A tiny brown toy rabbit sits on my desk. I gave it to my grandmother on her deathbed. It was watching over her as she drew her last breath. Which objects in your home will you never get rid of? Think about it for a minute. It’s a useful exercise in increasing awareness about the things you surround yourself with. Every object carries a story. Here are some stories about frustrating airport transfers, stories of love and legacy, creating personal timelines – and drawers that will never open.

The past four years, I have gone through major changes related to where and what home is. We sold the house that had been my childhood home for the past 36 years and moved to an island after 24 years of living in Oslo.

One autumn day, I had to choose which objects from my childhood home I wanted to keep before the house was to be inhabited by new people, a new everyday life, and new memories. Everything I had to decide on was gathered in a corner of an otherwise empty living room, on a parquet floor I had never noticed was that shiny. Many objects were also stacked in a garbage container outside the house.

Out of the container I pulled my mother's old LPs and two bedside tables that my grandfather had made. They were wet, it had been raining, and the water had soaked into the wood before I could save them. The drawers are therefore permanently locked. It will never be possible to open them. The lack of function has become a memory, a reminder that time and situation change our relationship to the objects we surround ourselves with.

The objects that ended up in the garbage container had their status as being part of a family's life brutally changed – suddenly becoming redundant, something mom and dad had to get rid of in the process of moving from the house where they had created a home for themselves, their children, and grandchildren for over three decades – to a small apartment without stairs.

So simple – and so difficult. So practical – and so emotional.

The cleanup
The first things that were allowed to be moved into our new house on the island of Tjøme were all my books. To the frustration of my husband, who has moved with me a few times, there are a lot of books. The bookshelves were the first things to be filled up in the new house. Why? Books give me a sense of security. They feel like home.

We become attached to the objects we choose to surround ourselves with. And sometimes life’s circumstances change the perspective on our surroundings. You may have to move out of your home, suddenly, for more or less dramatic reasons. Which objects will you take with you? What will you never get rid of? Maybe you are looking forward to moving into a new house and making it a home. What is the first thing you find room for? You may be in a situation where you are cleaning out the house of a person who is no longer with you. What do you keep?

‘Cleaning is creating a different kind of mess. Things no longer have their usual place, they have been moved, they have been rearranged and lose their meaning. It is the sadness of things. Everything is connected. When the connection is broken, we get lost,’ the Norwegian author Lars Saabye Christensen writes.² His book Widerbergs hus is about Saabye Christensen being given the keys to the house of the Norwegian artist Frans Widerberg by his son, Nico, after his father’s death in 2017, and what it is like to enter the home of someone who is no longer there.

Saabye Christensen describes the transformation from “home” to “room”.

‘There is a peculiar smell here, by the way, private, but not unlike the different smells I remember from my time at Majorstua moving company, when we emptied apartments that had been uninhabited for months, maybe years. It is the grief of the rooms. How long must they grieve before others move in?'³

Always a home includes objects that furnish your life beyond function; other needs are met; stimulus, self-representation, sensuality, recollection.

The stories
In her recent exhibition at the museum KODE in Bergen, Norwegian ceramic artist Heidi Bjørgan artistically intervened with the art collection of Norwegian collector Rasmus Meyer (1858–1916). The exhibition Heidi + Rasmus = True Lovebrought her work into dialogue with Meyer’s legacy. In curating an exhibition, objects and artworks communicate visually. This dialogue also characterises a home. Some objects work well placed next to each other. Others don’t go together. Just like people.

‘I connect emotionally to objects because most of them carry with them a story, an event or a feeling – something that has made an impression on me. It can be something positive, but also something painful or difficult. Crafts have a special status in this context, because these objects already have a story in them – through the person who made them,’ Bjørgan says.

She absolutely believes that objects create a home. In her eyes, without objects a house is just an empty shell – without personality.

‘The things around me matter because they tell stories. I actually think I remember where I got or bought almost all of my things – especially the ones that feel personal. When I look around my home, which may to some people seem like a place with a little too much stuff and clutter, I see stories everywhere.’

Stories about summer vacations at her grandparents’ home are connected to four chairs that Bjørgan has inherited and that now reside at her house. Another story is about irritation, physical strength – and frustration at airport transfers. A story connected to an object Bjørgan will never get rid of.

‘During my stay at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in 2014, I acquired the art piece Degrees of Ambivalence by American sculptor David East for 1500 NOK at an auction. David East was my teacher in Maine. I brought this object, weighing 12 kilos, home to Norway; a flight that included four transfers. With each transfer I became more and more tired and irritated at having to lug this heavy object around as hand luggage. Every time I look at it now, I am reminded of how tired and irritated I was during that journey – and that I made a smart purchase. David East is now a renowned American artist.’

Another thing Bjørgan never will get rid of is her vinyl record collection that started with her first purchase at 11 years old: Eat to the Beat by the American band Blondie.

‘Since then, the record collection has grown and followed me throughout my life. It has been stored in both the attic and the basement, and at times it has had the honour of adorning the teak sideboard in the living room. Now it has carefully been placed back in the basement. The record collection tells a story about who I have been at different stages of my life. Each record has its own meaning: memories, moods, and emotions pressed into each groove,’ Bjørgan describes.

‘Everyone has things, but artists do something else perhaps with the objects they own, in using them to think with,’ writes British ceramic artist Alison Britton, in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue for Life and Still Life at the Crafts Study Centre in 2012, where she showed a hundred objects belonging to her house and studio, as well as a group of new pots.⁴ ‘This thinking happens of course in the studio, but also at home, where most of the things reside. (...) You don’t always know why you bought or kept a thing until its moment arrives and it seems suddenly to promote an idea needing to be made.’

In Bjørgan’s studio, a deformed jug she bought 15 years ago is an eternal source of inspiration.

‘In 2010/11 I worked as a curator for the exhibition Ting Tang Trash, which opened the same year at the art museum Permanenten in Bergen.⁵ The exhibition showed visual art and crafts where industrial waste and ceramic objects formed the basis for new works. In connection with research on relevant artists for the exhibition, I visited British artist Carol McNicoll (1943-2025) in London. McNicoll was part of a group of female artists who transformed the British ceramics scene in the 1970s. Before this, she had made stage costumes for Roxy Music – my favourite band.’

Bjørgan describes McNicoll’s studio as packed from floor to ceiling with fascinating objects, plaster moulds, readymades, and half-finished works.

‘I had never met an artist with as much energy and inspiration as her. Many of my colleagues have wondered how I manage to work in such a crowded workshop. Visiting Carol was both liberating and a relief – a confirmation that she too found inspiration in the very quantity of things. For both me and Carol, it was clear that a room full of objects can be a driving force – not a limitation.’

The year after Bjørgan’s visit, Carol McNicoll had an exhibition at the Marsden Woo gallery in London.

‘I didn’t have a lot of money but ended up buying the most affordable object in the exhibition – a jug. It is deformed in shape, decorated with decals and ornamentation inspired by the British porcelain company Wedgwood’s famous antique patterns. This jug truly inspires me in my own artistry, as does Carol herself, her story and distinctive presence as an artist. Many of my own works can be described as deformed in expression, and I have – like her – a love for a workshop filled with objects that carry soul and history.’

The home
The title of this text claims that objects make a home. So, what is a home? In nomadic cultures, home, understood as a static place, is not primarily associated with objects. The Norwegian artist Vanessa Baird has created a series of works under the title Home is where my mother is. It is a nice statement, in line with the proverb "Home is where the heart is”, where the idea perhaps is that home is a feeling of human presence, not a place, not objects.

In the Norwegian podcast Kunstpodden we have created several episodes that problematise artists' homes as actual places and artistic motifs in different ways. The Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) designed carpets, pillows, candlesticks, and lamps for his apartment in the Vigeland Museum in Oslo – in addition to his own urn and mausoleum. Ever since he moved into the apartment in 1924 with his wife Ingerid, he lived in a museum of his own artistry. A home made for posterity.

The Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) used his own home as the setting for many of his paintings. These dark interiors, painted in a tactile, veiled expression, are interpreted by many as containing themes of loneliness, isolation, and alienation – largely because of the atmosphere, but also because of the absence of objects. The painting Interior with an Easel, Bredgade 25 (1912) shows a sparse and dark interior, as if seen through a misty grey veil. We see the back of an easel. Half of a white double door is open, and we can glimpse a white porcelain tureen on a table in the room inside. The solitary porcelain object that our gaze seeks becomes the bearer of an uncanny sensation without us fully understanding why.

In homes where few objects are allowed to cross the threshold, objects will naturally receive the full focus of people who move through these spaces. In the international bestseller and self-help book Goodbye, Things⁶ Japanese author Fumio Sasaki writes about the connection between surrounding yourself with fewer things, living a simpler life under the star of minimalism – and an increased sense of happiness. It is undeniably a liberating, anti-capitalist idea to play with, to get rid of 90% of your stuff, to cut the necessities right down to the bone. Do objects weigh us down?

The magic
Norwegian ceramic artist Marthe Elise Stramrud believes that objects absolutely create a home – and that a home can be stripped of life.

‘On a practical level, there are objects that make it possible to live and survive in a home. You need a kitchen to cook; pots, whisks, and baking pans, something to eat with and something to eat from. I am completely convinced that things that are well designed, both in function and form, put a smile on your face. A home should make you smile!’

In the newly built house of her and her partner, artist Audar Kantun, they are the opposite of minimalists.

‘We are not afraid of having things. Pictures, blankets, art, vases, cups, and vessels are placed everywhere. But all these things are carefully selected by either me or Audar, they mean something to us, often as carriers of a history we have in common or from the past. They bear witness to the fact that someone lives here.’

The first thing that came across the doorstep of the new house was a 300kg Italian wood stove that Marthe Elise Stramrud bought two years before they started building the house.

‘We moved in in December, without electricity and water, while everything was still a construction site. Back then, she (the wood stove, that is) was completely elementary. She is a beast of a machine. She heated the whole house in a few hours. We could bake bread and pizza, boil pots and heat water to do the dishes. She is Italian and a bit “old-fashioned” in style but nevertheless she naturally occupies a place in our brand new house.’

Ever since Audar asked Marthe Elise almost 15 years ago if she could love a “365 student package” from IKEA, that has been their interior design mantra: Nothing they don't love should be brought into their home.

‘That's when we started collecting different kinds of crockery and cutlery. We went to the Norwegian thrift store Fretex and bought a few plates here and a few cups there – and suddenly we had a small collection of objects to eat from that brought a smile to our faces. We have kept that method – and even though we don’t always agree on what we love, it’s certain that there are few generic things in our house. It can get a little chaotic when we set a long table, but that certainly has its charm too!’

There are two objects Stramrud will never get rid of, that she associates with people that are important to her, and she believes that handmade objects are carriers of energies, both materially and from the hands that once made them.

‘I will never get rid of my handmade cabinet in flame birch that I inherited from my grandfather and the oak chairs from my grandmother. They are both handmade treasures. I am convinced that we can feel these energies when we use or touch the objects. It is incredible that one can become attached to a chair or a cup! There must be something magical behind it,’ Stramrud concludes.

The personality
The objects we surround ourselves with can be directly linked to our psyche. Maybe we buy a Y-chair by Danish designer Hans J. Wegner because we think it will give us the cultural capital and status, identity, and a sense of acquired security that we pine for? Objects are obvious carriers of memories, history, a sense of belonging – and cultural heritage.

In the context of how objects make a home, the Sámi artist and architect Joar Nango draws on his family’s duodji – Sámi applied art and craft – and the things his father, grandmother, and aunt have made.

‘These objects create links between generations. It is especially important in the context of a silenced Sámi history where the cultural and material heritage ties have been attempted, shattered, and torn apart.’

The Norwegian social anthropologist and editor of the magazine Ajour Hélène Andersen is concerned with how people understand and relate to the world around them through objects.

‘A common perception in Western natural science is to separate the living and the non-living. I relate to things as if they have their own soul, and crafts made by human hands will naturally have more “soul” than an object produced by a factory in China,’ she says.

The semi-annual magazine Ajour, that Andersen initiated together with co-editor Kristin Valla, is about personal style, home decor, and smart consumption.

‘At Ajour, we are passionate about Norwegian cultural heritage and design. Knowing the origin of a piece of furniture, a dress, or a chair gives it something extra. Good quality is of course important if something is made to last forever, but the stories that things carry probably mean the most to me. I am quite nostalgic and struggle with throwing things away.’

In addition to candlesticks in brass and marble and Art Deco crystal glasses from her mother’s childhood home in France, a photograph by the Norwegian artist Bjarne Bare and a suit with gold and silver sequins from fashion designer Admir Batlak, Andersen is especially fond of everyday objects.

‘I can sit by the kitchen counter and admire a raw brass faucet from Danish design brand Vola. The shape, the changing colour, and the function. I enjoy looking at it and using it every day. I would rather invest in well-designed everyday objects than art. If I was rich, I would invest in both!’

Andersen is of the opinion that by simply choosing an object over another object, the chosen object becomes part of something bigger; a reflection of who you are and the values you have.

‘An object is rarely just an object. It entails a story, an aesthetic, and a personal expression. The things we surround ourselves with help shape our perception of the world and how we want to be perceived by others,’ Andersen concludes.

The past
Objects make a home because we connect with the things around us. This has to do with what we want people to think about us when they enter our homes. It has to do with what we need to surround ourselves with to feel at home. It has to do with different personalities, from people feeling relaxed in a room with just one chair, to people needing things stacked from floor to ceiling to feel inspired to make art. But it seems that the objects in our homes that mean the most to us are connected to the past in different ways. We like to surround ourselves with things that remind us of how our grandfather was, who we were at 15, personal growth, and the cultural ties we want to carry forward. The physical object can transfer you back to your roots, and to the stories and people that you have shared time with, in a completely different way than a digital reminder is capable of.

It seems that a place needs references to the past to feel like home. These are the things we have in common.