“What about old people who have mostly been worn out – do you collect and remake them as well”?
A curious and energetic 91-year-old visitor at Smetumet

“5 minutes, and there’s a new hat, my grandmother used to say as she flattened her hat into a new shape …”
Tinka

“I never throw stuff away, because everything comes handy eventually. Or not.”
Visitor at Smetumet

“Aesthetics without ethics are cosmetics.”
Ulay; performer and photographer

“I had to turn the door of my storage room to open outwards, as there’s no place left for them to open inwards.”
Visitor at Smetumet

“You will always find some Eskimos ready to instruct the Congolese on how to cope with heat waves.”
Stanislaw Jerzy Lec

“It’s always awkward when they’d already bagged everything and then I finally remember to say: Oh, I don’t need the bag!”
Zala, participant at Smetumet workshops

“If such a society didn’t exist yet, it would have had to be established.”
Marina, in a letter to Smetumet

“Every woman needs a storage room and a bidet!”
Visitor at Smetumet

“Don’t print out this mail, save the trees and printer cartridges.”
Andrej, email signature

“You don’t need more space than the space you need!”
Urša, an idea from Cologne

“Sometimes I think about how much work it’ll be when I die and they’ll have to put away my things. And they’ll say, as young people say today: ‘Dammit, what’s all this shit?!’”
Elderly visitor at Smetumet

“Work with what you have!”
Gregor

“Those who don’t know how to enjoy become joyless.”
NN

“Buy expensive, cry once. Buy cheap, cry every day.”
Hindu proverb

“Dung is gold and gold is dung.”
Srečko Kosovel

“The greatest wisdom is not to be wise all the time.”
German proverb

“Life is an extremely hazardous condition: you can die at any moment.”
Woody Allen

“Better to read one person than to read ten books.”
Portuguese proverb

“I say to my grandchildren: You don’t need to go to Bistra, come to granny, I’ve a got a museum at home.”
Visitor at Smetumet