This article draws on psychoanalysis to theorize artifacts as data in a postsecondary classroom setting. Psychoanalytic theory offers nuanced frames through which to interpret this data. What psychoanalysis alerts us to are the multiple and as such irreducible meanings of experience. Importantly psychoanalysis allows reading of this data for its affective moments. What does it mean for students to bring personal artifacts into a classroom? What sorts of meanings are ascribed to artifacts? What are the layers of narratives that are revealed when students speak to memories of photographs and objects? How might artifact work permit the outside self to be present inside an educational setting and generate a sense of reciprocity?