We think...it's for carrying something delicate.

We don’t really know what this box is, who made it or why. Ms Johnson, who had picked it up at a flea market in Canada, thought it might have been a home-made instrument box. It could well be. The outer shell of the old and battered suitcase is made of tin and was obviously bought be someone who then fitted it with a wooden panelling in a style you would expect to find in a seventies bathroom. After a bit of thinking and tinkering we decided that the panelling was also lined with Styrofoam insulation, to keep the contents of the suitcase warm and cozy.

The trick is to keep the mouse occupied while traveling.

The reason this object was difficult to re-fit into an art object, is that it has already been remade from its original form. When someone sees my final sculpture, they will most likely assume that I also installed the wooden panelling, why not, given it’s such an odd addition. My response to this presumed assumption was to attach an invented story to the suitcase, that would both answer the initial question of what the wooden panelling was for, but also add several new layers of open ended questions.

A good instruction should always add more question marks than it adresses.

When an artwork is functional, I prefer it if the aesthetic choices are kept simple, and the perceived or real functionality of the object is made to carry both the obvious narrative of the piece, as well as a number of implied layers. That way, when someone engages with the object, they first think aha, so that’s what it’s for, but then also start trying to pick apart a number of mysteries and oddities that are implied given the up-front purpose of the artwork combined with how it would actually perform, and most importantly, what kind of world we would be living in if the object was actually a real and not an imaginary construct.

Object no. 34