Collection as Biography

Abstract

This chapter explores the social nature of collecting practice by examining the collecting experience of Pierre and Annie Cantin. This couple, who began collecting in the 1960s, assembled over the course of four decades a colwelection that is comprised of over 5000 artifacts pertaining to Quebec history—clothing, accessories, textiles, folk art, and household objects, among other things—part of which is now with the Musée de la civilisation, in Quebec City. This chapter argues that interpersonal relationships are at the heart of the couple’s collecting practice by helping shape the collection and give it meaning. Based on an analysis of oral narratives, as well as the objects themselves, it examines the important influence of networking in bringing together such a collection and explores the way social and intimate relationships reverberate through the stories the collector recounts. Taking into consideration Annie Cantin’s own perspective, this chapter aims to correct the misconception that collecting is an inherently solitary and antisocial endeavor by considering sociability as a conscious collecting strategy and seeing how it reflects on the collection as a whole.