I met these relatives only after their passing. Not through conversations or shared memories, but by helping my family clear their home. I did not come to know their words, but their belongings. Through these, I discovered their passions, skills, obsessions, and faults.

The apartment had stood untouched for more than a year. The couple had left abruptly in a medical emergency and never returned. Time froze here, a coffee cup still on the table. Yet time showed its traces by the withering of the plants.

What I found was clutter to the extreme. Rows of objects buried one another, rendering most of them inaccessible. The couple were intellectuals, with an insatiable thirst for books and art. Closets overflowed with tailored garments, the trace of her life as a haute couture designer. Yet the beauty of these things were suffocated by sheer quantity.

After a week of clearing 150 square meters, this was the result:

• Three trucks carrying 8.8 tons of discarded items.

• Seventy square meters of storage filled with a grand piano, paintings, prints, glassware, pottery, jewelry, photographs, 192 boxes of books, sewing equipment, and furniture.

Technical details:

• 33 x 24 cm handbound book

• Marbled paper

• Faux leather

• Wax family crest (stamped with the family crest ring that belonged to the woman who lived in the house)

Photography, graphic design, and binding by M G de Clercq.