Title: Only touch me with your eyes

Author: Laurence Fearnley

In: Sport 24: Summer 2000

Publication details: Fergus Barrowman, March 2000

Part of: Sport

Conditions of use

Share:

Only touch me with your eyes! If you want me to survive, please just look at me

I was working in the Museum of New Zealand Project Office in November 1994 so I knew the museum had bought Jeff's car for its collection. Jeff and I were no longer living together. I didn't really look at the car, stop and look at it, until a month ago, during my last visit to Te Papa. For most of the hour I was by myself, though from time to time a school group or a visitor would come and stand next to page 9 me to look at the Holden. I've worked in art museums and galleries and so it's been drilled into me, the thing about not touching art objects unless you're wearing white cotton gloves. It's just something I can't do—like folding a page corner in a book or dropping litter. The people who came and stood next to me had no such inhibitions. They all touched the car, ran their hands over its corrugated iron cladding, or knuckle-tapped its roof. I stood and looked at the car, all the time wishing I could open the door and sit inside and have a poke around in the glove box or run my fingers down the back of the seats to see if any rivets were still stuck in the upholstery. More than that, though, I wanted to run my hand across the bonnet, to feel the warmth and roughness of the metal, the texture, like skin on summer-cracked bare feet.

I couldn't touch the car though and I felt sad. Really sad.

page 10