An idea by Fitzrovia Noir co-founder Lucieta Williams, in our first year that grew into our second touring exhibition, culminating in an Edinburgh Festival showcase where our key image featured as the banner atop this international arts event’s website for five years.
In a reclaimed arch under Peckham Rye station, Life in a Suitcase came together on a winter’s night in late 2007, an open call to twelve artists, between Camberwell College of Arts and Goldsmiths College. Spring 2008 saw Carried Away expanding the offer to more contributors and Something to Declare completed the trilogy for Edinburgh Festival in summer 2009. Our launch event at Total Kunst, saw guests trying food and drink, sharing the contributor’s varied cultural backgrounds: from Finnish venison to Greek ouzo; Scottish cake to Venezuelan rum; Polish sausage to Chinese beer, collected in suitcase sculptures using cardboard packaging from those countries, created from an original idea by Matthew Kolakowski.
Project Title
Suitcase Series: Life in a Suitcase / Carried Away / Something to Declare
Locations
Sassoon Gallery, Peckham, London SE15
St Pancras Crypt, Dukes Road, London WC1
Total Kunst, The Forest, Old Town, Edinburgh EH1
Curation
Lucieta Williams
Production
Garry Hunter for Fitzrovia Noir
Mirja Koponen for Total Kunst
Lead Artist for Edinburgh
Matthew Kolakowski
Artists with locations where worked produced or focussed
Anne-Marie Glasheen (Belgium)
Caroline Gregory (England)
David Snoo Wilson (England)
Ellis Leeper (USA)
Garry Hunter (Brunei/Japan/Malasia)
Gen Doy (Scotland)
Graham Carrick (England)
John Perivolaris (Greece)
Kate Bradbury (England)
Lloyd Clater (South Africa)
Lucieta Williams (Italy)
Manuel Sanmartin (Venezuela)
Michael Mayhew (China)
Mirja Koponen (Finland)
Sabine Karch (Germany/USA)
Valérie Jolly (France)
with Caroline Pick, Charlotte Veysey, Elisabetta Pancucci Fabia Claris and Mim Burke
Media
Astroturf, assemblage, cardboard, collage, ephemera, inherited objects, paint, paper photography, religious icons/lightbulbs, sculpture, souvenirs, stamps, imported food/drink
Dates
December 2007 – August 2009
“This exhibition event-in-progress has a nomadic group of artists congregating in the city and throwing on the night a feast of food and travel mementoes.”
Edinburgh Art Festival website