The Office of Collecting & Design is part museum, part library, and part time machine. It is a collection of collections, devoted to the diminutive, the discarded, the misplaced, and the broken.
Imagine drawers full of loose doll parts, pencil stubs, unplayable dice, and used pink erasers; candy jars overflowing with lost buttons, marbles, and trinkets; displays of rickety dollhouse furniture, empty match boxes and lonely dominoes. The space is an elaborate love letter of leftover fragments from our collective memories.
Functioning as a sort of nostalgia machine, the museum plays with a sensuality of time, a folding of time. It’s never about the monetary value of an object, it’s about the value of an object as a token of memory for each visitor.
In essence, the Office of Collecting & Design is not just a museum; it's a growing, breathing tapestry of memories, dreams, and connections—a place (both physical and virtual) where the past and present converge, and where every object tells a story worth preserving.
The Office of Collecting & Design is known for their photographs, specifically a type of picture called a ‘flatlay,’ a careful arrangement of objects photographed from directly above. As part of the museum experience, visitors may create their own flatlays, curating and arranging their own collection of objects to be photographed. Each flatlay is utterly unique and personal. The process is often described as something between play therapy and art practice.
These photographs asks the viewer to engage in the question of why we collect. It challenges visitors to study our societal ideas about the veneration, preservation, and presentation of all types of objects. What makes a thing sacred, or historic, or, at its most basic, “important?”
The photographs also highlight the artifacts of consumerism which would otherwise end up in landfills and creates something moving and beautiful with them – sparking questions and imagination around reuse.
Multi-disciplinary artist Jessica Oreck often says that she collects the invisible. Not the magical, science-fiction version, but the stuff of life that is so commonplace, it has receded below our collective conscious awareness.
Working across film, animation, collage, photography, miniatures, and large-scale installation, all of Oreck’s work creates a sense of wonder about those invisible, overlooked aspects of the everyday.
In 2021, Jessica opened a museum in Las Vegas, NV called the Office of Collection & Design. It is devoted to the minuscule, the forgotten, and the discarded -- a palpable, interactive installation of nostalgia. Through the museum, Jessica presents various associated traveling exhibits, installations, and workshops around the US.
The Office of Collecting and Design also doubles as both an animation studio and a prop house for Jessica’s extensive work in film and animation. Two of her bite-sized, animated series were commissioned by TED, and more are underway for a soon-to-launch network.
Her films have been shown at festivals including Sundance, SXSW, and Tribeca as well playing theatrically around the world. The Criterion Collection recently hosted a retrospective of her documentary features.
On exhibit at Clark County Library from January 28, 2025 through April 1, 2025
Monday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Tuesday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Wednesday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Thursday: 10:00AM – 8:00PM
Friday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
Saturday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
Sunday: 10:00AM – 6:00PM
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