In my reading of Turkle’s collection of evocative objects, I came across the very interesting chapter called “Ballet Slippers”. In which the author, Eden Medina, presented a story of passion and dedication of her own, from childhood to maturity, and for me, it is also one that rang rather close to home. As a child at the age of 4, she had started training in her first pair of ballet slippers, with its presence soon became symbolic in her mind. As her skills develop, so does the complexity of her ballet slippers, and soon, the object becomes a mediator for her ideal image of the professional ballerina.
For me, my evocative object is somewhat similar to the author of my chapter, having been training in badminton competitively for most of my middle and high school life, I relate strongly to this theme of “desire and discipline”. Therefore, for me, the “badminton racquet” is an object that evokes memories of my whole youth and, of course, the metallic smell of graphite that came with each racquet still lingers in the back of my mind. As a beginner, I started with a cheap racquet, but as soon as my skills improved and I was able to convince my parents to get me the branded ones I’ve been seeing on TV. Throughout my career, I went through 8 different racquets, each representing a different era in my development as a player and also personally as my relationship with the sport changes.
I still remember when I first got a branded Yonex racquet, thinking back, it was quite an overkill considering my skill levels at the time anyway. But just like how the author’s experience of the ballet shoes mediated her idea of an ideal physicality, that racquet – the Yonex Nanoray Z Speed made me feel one step closer to the professional players I see on TV. Thinking back, perhaps the mental confidence that it affords was worth more than any technological advancements that came with it. In my games, I had no excuses but to only blame myself, for in my mind, my equipment is no longer the limiting factor for my performance, having this great a racquet in my hand. I realise that the mediation that the racket provides has allowed me to be immersed in a reality that I’ve yet to actually reach, and as such, acts as a device for my fantasies of perfection in my sport of badminton.
As such, in relation to Turkle’s theory, what makes this object evocative for me is exactly this connection that it currently mediates for me, between myself and the ideal image of badminton perfection. As Eden Medina has experienced, her ballet slippers have “helped [her] identify with the image of the professional ballerina that [she] upheld as [her] physical ideal.” Even more than that, for me, the badminton racquet is, in essence, also affording me my sense of identity, rather than being just an extension of my physical self. It has become part of who I am in my mind, “reaching out to me to form active partnerships,” as Turkle would say. The badminton racquet derives its meaning from its belonging to me, and I derive my identity as a player from having that specific racquet in my hand.
Yet, my dependency on this object to mediate my reality has its limitations; the more I am immersed in this somewhat fantastical identity of a professional player, the more I am disconnected from my real self. I soon find myself in a state of apathy toward the sport I once loved with all my heart, as I am caught in an infatuation with this fantasy that the racquet made possible. This would get worse as I grew to blame my bad performances on my racquets, thinking that they didn’t cater to my evolving play style. For a few years, I drifted away from the essence of the sport into the gimmicky world of its marketing.
Now looking back, I realise that it is altogether wrong to depend so strongly on an external object to mediate something as important as my sense of self, let alone what I hold as my ideal. Perhaps, it would be healthier for me as an individual and beneficial for me as a player to be fixated on my game, with my racquet simply a bodily extension, than to obsess over an object of mere aesthetic value. As now somewhat reached maturity, my relationship to badminton has greatly improved, as I’ve rediscovered the joy in playing badminton for the game itself, and not for some fantastical ideal from childhood. As for any objects one may find to be evocative, perhaps, the fact that it appears to be so in the first place may be due to an imbalance in one’s relationship with oneself. Thus, an object appears as evocative due to its ability to fill in such gaps and inadvertently creates a dependency that appears obsessive, especially in this area of the passions of desire and discipline.
Bibliography
Medina, Eden. “BALLET SLIPPERS.” Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, edited by Sherry Turkle, The MIT Press, 2007, pp. 54–61. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhg8p.10. Accessed 8 Oct. 2025.
Turkle, Sherry. “WHAT MAKES AN OBJECT EVOCATIVE?” Evocative Objects: Things We Think With, edited by Sherry Turkle, The MIT Press, 2007, pp. 307–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhg8p.39. Accessed 8 Oct. 2025.
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