Reflections

This project altered  some of my beliefs about the values of mementos; through this process, I found that even a somewhat close reproduction of a personal object (such as Namrita's pendant) was more effective than the "memento of a memento" approach I took with Shivang. In my ideal scenario, I would like to be able to check up with them in a month or so to see if they still kept the objects I created for them, if they held any place in their lives or were they forgotten after a short period. Additionally, in Namrita's case, I feel that the interaction might have been more powerful because it was an object that she actually lost (and never expected to see again), when in Shivang's case, it was an object that he could access once at home and could reasonable expect to see again; thus, in future work, I would like to try to experiment more with people who have objects that are actually gone from their lives and have no hope of seeing again, as I think that is when the interaction might be the most potent. Additionally, although for this experiment I thought it would be better to not tell Namrita or Shivang about the next steps of the project, in the future, I would like to try a more open approach with the people knowing that I would be attempting to recreate their object or with maybe even people approaching me to recreate their lost object. I would also like to see how this experience might work with people who are not so close to me, as I think my friends may have been affected by the fact that I made something for them on my behalf rather than a complete stranger. Along the similar lines, I would be interested to see how this might work in a museum or workshop type of environment, where people actively approach the recreation team to try to get a facsimile of their object back.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Namrita Murali, Shivang Chordia, Morgan Dively, Joseph Paetz, Tushita Gupta, and Gaurav Lahiry for their participation as the subjects of this project. I would also like to thank Prof. Daragah Byrne and Wei-Wei Chi for their help in providing critique as the project developed.