After a chance meeting earlier this year, Hamburg 3D artists Max Salzborn and Kevin Jaeger leveraged their new friendship into a collaborative motion art project investigating the universal and deeply inherent urge to collect.

Max Salzborn: “Kevin and I joined forces to embark on an personal animation project aimed at pushing the boundaries of our artistic skills and refining our styles. Immersed in our shared passions, we delved into the realm of collecting (‘Sammeln’ in German), a theme that would serve as the center of their project.
 

“Through our research, we unearthed a revelation: collecting transcends the human experience, extending its roots into the animal kingdom. Collecting is a fundamental interaction between living beings and their environment.”

 
“Our journey led us to contemplate questions about the essence of collecting — what precisely defines it, how objects attain collectible status, and why humans possess an innate compulsion to collect.

“Through our research, we unearthed a revelation: collecting transcends the human experience, extending its roots into the animal kingdom. From the gathering of sustenance to the nest-building, animals, too, exhibit a natural inclination towards collecting. Collecting is a fundamental interaction between living beings and their environment.

“An item’s value is deeply subjective yet it is the profound appreciation for each object, the journey undertaken to acquire it, the meticulous curation, and the artful presentation that imbue both individual items and the collection as a whole with their intrinsic worth. That way even a simple stick can become a piece of art.”
 
 

 
Director/animator: Max Salzborn, Kevin Jaeger

Sound design: Martin Huergo