Sawdust & Threads was a residency, exhibition and public programme that took de-accessioned museum objects as its material. The project was conceived by artist Caroline Wright and NorwichCastle curator Harriet Loffler in partnership with the Scott Polar Museum in Cambridge and UCL Museums & Collections in London. At each partner venue, a short residency enabled drawings of deaccessioned objects to be made, after which the objects were carefully deconstructed. The undoing took place in public galleries; visitors could observe objects being returned to their component parts. The drawings were exhibited alongside the performative acts of deconstruction. Each drawing was accessioned into the partner museum collections as a lasting record of their objects.The project hopes to pose questions around the nature of museum collections. Who owns these objects, and how is the value of an object defined? Is value being removed or re-ascribed during this process of deconstruction? And where is the art? Is it in the drawings or in the action of undoing? Each object selected for this project has been de-accessioned by the partner museums. This means that they have been through a rigorous process of responsible disposal in line with the Museums Association's Code of Ethics. A publication to accompany the project, Sawdust and Threads: drawing, deconstruction and the object, with essays by Haidy Geismar, Rebecca Heald, Tania Kovats and Caroline Wright