THE
MATTRESS PROJECT

Compendium and Exhibition Proposal

A mattress like a bed is a piece of furniture used primarily for sleep or rest. The mattress is synonymous with the passage of time, acting as a ‘Memento Mori’ for their anonymous owners, symbolising the cycle of life and all that can happen in between - and maybe after. The mattress represents our most intimate of private spaces: ‘It’s where people are born, are conceived, where they go when they’re ill, where – unless they have a violent death – most will be when they die. Some of most crucial moments in life happen in the bed.’ * It occupies a significant part of our lives and is charged with our inner most secrets. Their owners stories are unknown yet the objects themselves are real and were once part of someone’s life, acting as a time capsule and mausoleum, intensely intimate yet resolutely impersonal marking the start and end of life’s journey.

These unwanted, abandoned and obsolete items have become poignant and commanding testimonies of loss and remembrance while drawing our attention to the growing problem of recycling and the landfill crisis our society faces.

The projects aim was to photograph abandoned mattresses over a two mile radius in South West London over a three day period, documenting their locations like a piece of archaeology without questioning why they had been abandoned. Then cataloguing them before displaying them like museum pieces from archaeological dig.

* Macdonald, F. 2020. The Bed In Art History: Between The Sheets. bbc.com. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20150325-between-the-sheets