"A few years back, I had a part time job working in the lost property office at a railway station. I can't honestly say that it was anything more than a way for me to make a bit of extra cash, although it did have its moments. It was a job that frequently brought me into contact with people from all walks of life, backgrounds, situations. But it was always the people that I didn't meet, would never meet, that interested me the most, the people who I would only ever know through the objects they left behind. It delighted to me therefore when I discovered that I wasn't alone in this fascination. Part of the job involved the logging of lost items on a simple lost and found tag that acted as a way of keeping track of all the items that passed through the office and the people who had come to collect them. It was amongst a pile of these tags that I stumbled up several that contained little bits of additional detail: annotations, speculations and comments; all of which certainly went above and beyond the remit of the job. It was in these little extra details: the question marks, the detailed names, the subtle observations; that lay the sparks of lived experience, little fragments of narrative that offered a brief glimpse into the life of strangers. 

I have selected the tags of five umbrellas that passed through the lost and found office and through extrapolation and speculation I have endeavoured to bring to life these fractured narratives." - M Clifford