Interactive CD-ROM, computer with touchscreen video screen, 214 C-prints, color photograph , offset lithograph on paper, video (The Making of Junior [+ Entertaining Junior]) .
In 1994 Starr was commissioned to make a new work for the city of Den Haag. Having spent two weeks feeling lonely and depressed in a hotel in the city she turned her room into an artwork; 'The Nine Collections'. Inspired by the kunstkamer paintings of Flemish Baroque painter Willem Van Haecht (Apelles Painting Alexander's Consort Campaspe), which she had seen in a local museum, she began recording everything she had made and collected during her stay and then constructed links between the pieces to form the nine catagories. The 'collection' includes The Costume Collection, The 7 Sorrows Collection, The Lahey Collection and The Junior Collection which relates to her alter ego 'Junior', a doll she made in the hotel room.
Starr then transferred images of the 214 'pieces' onto the computer to create the final work; an interactive touchscreen CD Rom, which allows the viewer to tour the collection via image, text, video and sound. The work is accompanied by a detailed room plan and 20 page exhibition style guide book*.
*Extract from the guide book:
The Collection was assembled at the Lahey residence in the west of the city. The basic origin of The Collection comes from an initial visit and subsequent stay at the Lahey residence. Within The Collection we see constant references to the house and garden at Lahey, and indeed The Lahey Collection, which we know was vast.
The main collection has been divided into nine subsidiary collections ; The Lahey Collection, The Seven Sorrows Collection, The Recollection Collection, The Allegory of Happiness Collection, The Costume Collection, The Junior Collection, The Storytellers Collection, The Portrait Collection and The Visit to a Small Planet Collection.
