From Hoarding Impulse to Art Installation Sara Cwynar, an artist and a designer at the Times Magazine, takes collecting to the extreme. She told me that she constantly amasses objects, both to satisfy her "hoarding impulses" and to compile a historical record. This winter, while contemplating a move from her Bushwick apartment and studio, Cwynar began to feel that her personal archive was becoming an unhealthy burden. When approached in January to do her first solo exhibition, she had an idea that would make use of her entire collection and ultimately force her to get rid of it all. Cwynar's show, "Accidental Archives," which opened this past Thursday at the Cooper Cole Gallery in Toronto (Cwynar is Canadian), consists of a series of six photographs and one installation. The photographs are images of items the artist collected and sorted by color. The installation includes items as disparate as a carton of eggs she had bought a few days before the show and photos that had been in her family for more than 20 years. At the conclusion of the show, Cwynar plans to destroy the entire installation. This may seem extreme considering that the piece contains irreplaceable family heirlooms. But Cwynar thinks it's a necessary way to liberate herself from the objects and to make a commentary on the excessive accumulation of possessions. What are the hardest items for Cwynar to part with? A mannequin hand that she is particularly fond of, a skull that she often uses in her art and a photo of her father taken when he was about her age. Accidental Archives will be on view through August 18.