“Change matters because we remember what came beforehand”
PROJECT SYNERGY - CHANGE EDITION
Matchbox 912
MAY 22, 2024
- edited by
RAFAELLA MUFARECH
WHY MATCHES?
When I was younger, my Aunt Sue, who lived in NYC, had a giant bowl of matches in her apartment. I always wanted to look through them, although I never asked. I knew I wanted to have a large glass bowl filled with matches just like her when I grew up. Little did I know this would be a source of inspiration and creation years later.
Matchboxes themselves are unique pieces of history, memory, nostalgia, art, and design. The collages I have created so far try to embrace and celebrate all that makes the individual pieces special and explore how they work together, creating unique compositions.
The pieces highlight the art, design, and branding of the past. They showcase the time and effort restaurants and companies put into their branding by utilizing unique color palettes, fonts, and curated graphics. These beautiful little pieces of art themselves often were collected, and many now just sit in large glass vessels or shadowboxes as decorations. But sadly, the owners do not usually look through the collections often, having hidden match treasures that they have not seen in decades.
The matchbook collages I create turn something ordinary and forgotten into something beautiful and extraordinary. The compositions I have created so far are all themed.
Even if you have not been to the restaurants featured on the matches themselves, you are still able to think about the restaurants you do love and have made fond memories dining at.
I have recently been gifted my Aunt’s vintage matchbook collection, most of which are from New York City restaurants. The piece is for her, using her own collection of places that she has visited throughout the years. Many of them are closed, but some are still around to this day.
This piece will be a time capsule of a period of her life, the art and design of the time, as well as a reminder of how the city and she both have changed since then.
Change matters because we remember what came beforehand.
Matchbox 912 celebrates the past in the present.