There is a glass jar in the corner of the studio, lid rusted shut, full of bolts I pulled off a collapsed fence in Žižkov maybe six years ago. I have moved it four times. Never opened it. Today I needed one M8 and I stood there with the jar in my hands for a long minute and put it back.

The thing is the fence is gone. Demolished, flats there now, expensive ones. So those bolts are the only part of it left that exists anywhere, and every time I take one out for some stupid bracket I am spending it. Down to a finite number of that afternoon.

I know how this sounds. I have told younger artists for years that material is material and hoarding it is just fear wearing a nice coat. Then I keep a jar of bolts I will not open because of a fence.

Practical question underneath it though, and I genuinely do not have the answer: when do you decide a saved thing has become the work itself and not the supply for it? Because I am fairly sure this jar is now a piece and I have been calling it inventory.