Emotional luggage : Unpacking the suitcase

How do you approach an elusive phenomena like “travel fever”, the kind of mixed feelings travellers experience, hovering between anxiety and exhilaration? In an ongoing study of such links between motion and emotion I have worked with different arenas, above all the production of shared or contested moods and atmospheres in transit spaces. Here, I would like to try another approach: the suitcase. It is an object into which emotionalities and materialities are thrown or neatly packed, entangled in interesting ways.
The suitcase is not only a container for stuffing objects, but also emotions, dreams, anxieties and ideals. It can be many things: a condensation of the future, an icon of mobility, a last resort, a threatening or comforting object, a defense against a hostile world, a transitional object in Winnicott’s terms.
This travel item is explored through a bricolage approach, mixing history, popular culture, field observations, art and fiction. My aim is to discuss the specific kind of throwntogtherness of materialities and emotionalities that a suitcase offers.