The sex toy forms part of an unusual ‘memory box’ created by Dutch designer Mark Sturkenboom to preserve and evoke precious reminders of the dearly departed. More conventionally, it also contains a necklace and an amplifier for playing music that conjures up memories of the lost lover.
There’s also a scent diffuser, and a gold-plated urn that holds up to 21 grams of ash inside the glass-blown dildo. The box is called 21 Grams – a reference to the supposed weight of the human soul.
Utrecht-based Sturkenboom explained that 21 Grams – which is handmade to order – provided the opportunity to display “an immortal desire”. Quoted on www.dezeen.com, he said: “After a passing, the missing of intimacy with that person is only one aspect of the pain and grief. This forms the basis for 21 Grams.”
Sturkenboom revealed that he developed the idea as a result of his friendship with a widow. “I sometimes help an elderly lady with her groceries and she has an urn standing hear the window with the remains of her husband,” he said. “She always speaks with so much love about him but the jar he was in didn’t reflect that at all.
“In that same period I read an article about widows, taboos and sex and intimacy and then I thought to myself: ‘Can I combine these themes and make an object that is about love and missing intimacy?'”
The device was shown during Milan design week along with other products by Sturkenboom. These included a clock called ‘Watching Time Fly’. The timepiece has no hands, and doesn’t tell the time – but illustrates the passing of time by way of a model fly, made from a 500-euro note, which completes one revolution around a glass dome every 60 seconds.
