2. The Sanzelize Boutique

"I didn’t worry too much about making the first box, which I built around the earring Füsun dropped, but the main problem I would face throughout the making of the museum became immediately clear when I got to this second box: what kind of compositional logic should I use to place the objects in the box? What shape should each box take? I had already collected some objects before and during the writing of the novel, such as Füsun’s yellow shoes and the cowbell. I worked on making the “fake” Jenny Colon bag—named after the Romantic poet Gérard de Nerval’s lover—with Istanbul’s artisans; and I had found the Sanselize Butik’s old signboard. So now, I asked myself, should I put the objects in the box according to the order in which they appear in the book or should I make a different tableau out of them? It was while imagining this box that I made the decision that would delay the completion of the museum for months—nay, years—and bring me both joy and sadness. No, I couldn’t just display the objects in order, like books on a shelf. Each box needed its own structure and aura; each should have its own particular soul. Inspiration struck me unexpectedly one day and I sketched the layout of this box – which I call the Sanselize Butik box – on a page from the manuscript of the novel. Afterwards, we transposed my sketch into this box, and worked to perfect it through fractional adjustments, and trial and error. Imagining the boxes one by one as objects beautiful in their own right has added a touch of lyricism to the museum." (The Innocence of Objects by Orhan Pamuk)