Whilst moving house in October 2020, Button discovered a collection of objects stored at the back of a cupboard in a shoe box, untouched since he was 7 years old. The objects inside, he had at some point grown fond of, sequestering them away as a secret collection as many children do.
At the time he had read of gem caches discovered in the Alps, left by prehistoric settlers who hid away precious minerals in subteranean caves and burrows, presumably for religious, ceremonial or commercial use. Button is attracted to this notion of prescribing value to functionless objects and that that process has persisted for hundreds of thousands of years.
Adopting a language of taxanomic display systems, often used to present archaological findings, Button attempts to align the presentation of a personal history with that of a formal institutional one.
Cache 1 promotes the acceptance of a natural state of uncertainty. An absence of clarity surrounding the nature of the objects inside the structure creates a vacuum in our understanding. The observer is obliged to fill with this space with their own projected narrative.
Latent Traces Part 1 (2021). Changingroom Gallery, Leicester Square.