The essence of a plate – an archive

For a period of time I received plates from the Red Cross and Erikshjälpen, plates with some kind of defect, which were not considered possible to sell. Eventually there were more than 400 plates. Just like any other man-made object, each plate has its own history of material, origin, design, manufacture, use and when I received it, a decision to no longer use it. Unable to keep the plates in their original form, I decided to create an archive where only a shard with the stamped underside of the plate could represent the original plate. Each plate is documented in pictures and information about its origin, quality, use and reason for discarding has been recorded. The information is organized in a card index.