ARTISTS TALKING

The afterword to Things not worth keeping tells us that the project arose as a response to 'the spectacles of cultural pickling dominating Millennium preparations, in particular those ludicrous listings and packagings of 'the best of''. In December 1999, the editors Cris Cheek and Kirsten Lavers invited 1000 people to nominate a thing of their own that they considered 'not worth keeping' and to suggest why this might be the case.

The book of the project collects 100 of these nominations. Each 'thing not worth keeping' is documented with a colour photograph and text and each contributor is identified merely as 'gay activist' or 'lighting technician'. The contributors' names are listed at the back so it's tempting to try and match name and label. Is Evelyn Glennie OBE 'tabla player' who contributed a cast discarded after a broken bone had healed? Or 'cracking solo percussionist' who sent in a pair of maracas? Many of the contributions are very funny. I particularly liked 'old key – no idea what it opens' from 'psychotherapist' and 'pieces of my car – car crashed' from 'claims negotiator'.

The project raises some serious questions too, not least about how we invest the material world with deeply personal significance. How and when do we decide that a thing has or no longer has a value? The most disturbing contribution – a bayonet and a filing cabinet connected to a violent relationship – suggests that all our relations with objects may have an element of the talismanic. Things not worth keeping also questions how cultural value is created. In common with, say, Sarah Lucas' Two Fried Eggs And A Kebab it leaves us wondering not just how but whether the things it brings together have become art and whether art is only in the bringing together.