Abstract: This article is dedicated to systematization and analysis of the key principles of the social practice of collecting. Analyzing the causes of collecting activity alongside motives and prerequisites for collecting, the author explores the social character of interaction between an object and a human. The article touches upon the phenomenon of personification of things and objectification of people. Significant attention is paid to comprehension of the basic principles of collecting – a thing as such, and the time as the main condition of transformation of that think into a collectable item. The article reviews the integrated processes of cultural interaction in the course of creation and utilization of collection. Giving characteristics to communication space, the author determines and scrutinizes the three fields of communication: “subject – exhibit item” (interaction between the owner of collection and its items); “subject – subject” (the entire range of means of communication interaction, which makes a collection public and information rich; and “collection – audience” (interactive events created for the formation of cross-cultural communication).

Abstract: In the XXI century, under the effects of the globalization factors, mass consumerism culture and demonstrative consumption, there formed a new type of culturological way of thinking, which prompted new conceptual approaches towards the understanding of the collecting phenomenon. The basic function of collecting (preservation of the heritage of the past) is replaced by a demonstrative collecting, in which the value (both, material and spiritual) is substituted by the symbolic perception of demands of an individual, and the main motivating factor for the collector becomes consists in the desire of establish a certain level of prestige and effort to be a part of an elite social circle or demonstrate their individuality. These changes represent an objective and natural process, characteristic to the period of change in the paradigm of civilizational development, namely the transition from traditional industrial society towards a postindustrial one. This article gives detailed overview to the presented structural transformations of the forms of collecting, brought about by the development in cultural trends of consumer society.