My mother believed in use it or lose it. Pebbles, leaves, sad and broken things, slimy and smelly things from the garden or beach were tolerated only briefly before the clearing-out purge began. Everything unused, unworn, or unplaceable on a shelf disappeared. So when I encountered Tom Sewell's Archipelago, the child in me, with a hint of jealousy, asked, "How was he allowed to keep all this?"

But after talking to him, I see that Archipelago is not really about "keeping" things that your mom can't throw away, but about "introducing" things to one another. Offering one to another "in the family of things". Archipelago, through the messy, contradictory "tentacles" of relationships it captures, tells us that we need a completely new sense of "what goes with what."

It stands so at odds with taxonomy and its empires, made of Latin and categories, "families," and the slow-burning violence of "knowing your place" in this world. Archipelago makes its own families, with generosity and curiosity where the company of fellow species is not determined by resemblance, origin, or the thrill it offers to our eyes.

I see my family and others as I look at these pieces, and think, ours are not that different at the end of the day, still made and unmade from sticky, murky, slippery, and complicated things. When I look at the families I have come close to and the families of Archipelago, I see a flaming hot compost of pasts, presents, and futures. A little run-down like all composts, a little mad, like all composts... always in a rush & push. Never resting, never leaving: Home Sweet Home.

These pieces must have known the loneliness, bitterness, the sound of freezing winter winds that dip one in grief and misery, and the cruelty of people; and, at the same time, the delight and gratitude of them; they must have been confused, like us, over and over... until they finally knew what a serious thing it is just to be here and there. Scattered across like the fresh morning dew. How beautiful and dangerous it is to be

in someone's hands,
in someone's walls,
in someone's mind,
in this broken world.