As British sociologist Jennifer Mason has argued, recognizing similarity is an important component of familial connectedness.
This applies not only to blood relations: it is also being imagined and projected when there are no biological ties. Can recognizing similarity be extended to objects? Do the object’s functions include amplifying the sense of people and things belonging together?
Three piglets (bibelot)
Szczecin
courtesy of Bogdana Kozińska
The porcelain trinket depicting three little pigs was found in the basement of a house in Szczecin in the 1950s. The Kozińskis, a family who had just moved in with their three young daughters, immediately took to it: “There were three of us, three sisters, and they became our three piglets, absolutely” – Bogdana Kozińska recalls. When she moved out several years ago, leaving the house that had become too big and too difficult to maintain, she took with her the precious family “heirloom”.