I
A passport, a rosary, a photograph, a diary with addresses, another photograph, a scarf that was once a gift from a lover, an inhaler, a wad of hurried money, a change of underwear, a sweater, a harmonica - a dozen things that can fit into the lightest of bags - the fragile cargo of an 'illegal' does not take up much space. It always reminds its carrier of all that has been left behind. Sometimes even the lightest of plastic bags, with a dozen odds and ends can be a heavy burden to carry.

Closets, cupboards, kitchens, bookshelves, trunks - and everything that they contain, are left behind in a past that becomes inaccessible and remote suddenly, in a single move,. A vast ensemble of abandoned objects accumulates in an imaginary warehouse. Such an imaginary warehouse is an archive and a repository of fragile and endangered memories. Such imaginary warehouses can be found wherever people are detained for having left their past behind. One can imagine a warehouse of warehouses that connects all the dispersed memories of discarded worlds.

Detention centres for 'illegals' are zones full of memories of discarded objects, abandoned lives, fractured histories - though encased in the walls, they contain the most fragile of memories. Here, in these walls, one can think of a Warehouse, as a 'Wherehouse' - a repository of reflection about place and placelessness, about 'where one is' and 'where one is not' about location and dislocation. This is why we call our intended warehouse of memories, a 'Wherehouse'.

The 'Wherehouse' is an image-text constellation of commonplace and nondescript objects, which invite inscription and annotation. Inscriptions can take the form of stories, fragments of memory, imaginary conversations, descriptions of incidents that have occurred or witnessed, or simply, random thoughts and ideas.

II
A city is a giant magnet for everyday objects, fragments of clothing, newspapers, matchboxes, cigarettes, mugs, shoes, tools, umbrellas, bottles - these are the things that circulate across the globe and collect in a million garbage bins in cities all over the world. Each object has been touched at some point by human hands.

Every object is embossed with the traces of memory.
Objects carry stories and the seeds of retrievable memories.
Objects, and their images, can be the vessels of thoughts, dreams, memories and ideas.

Excavations yield fragments. Debris accumulates.
Images recalled ricochet off the walls of the wherehouse.
Things left behind, when found, unravel. Memories travel. Inscriptions survive.

Enter. Welcome to the Wherehouse.