Kafkian suitcases

Kafkian suitcases
Video-installation with suitcases. 2018

The suitcase as a displacement metaphor. Also of forced and uncertain displacements.

Three suitcases (the third one has never existed) allow us to understand three stories that make History.

Suitcase 1: In the book My crossing of the Pyrenees, Lisa Fittko narrates the unexpected visit she received one day in September 1940: Walter Benjamin. He was carrying a suitcase that supposedly contained a manuscript. On September 26, Benjamin was found dead in a hotel room in Portbou; The manuscript has never been found.

Suitcase 2: In Prague, 16 years earlier, Franz Kafka collects thousands of documents, writings, texts, letters, notes and drawings in a suitcase. He entrusts them to his friend and executor Max Brod making him promise to burn them to his death. Brod ignores him, saves them from the fire and supervises the publication of most of the writings in his possession.

Suitcase 3: There are currently about 244 million immigrants in the world. There are thousands of people waiting at the borders, increasingly impassable. Between April and December 2017, about 5,500 people dead in migration routes have been corroborated. The real number is unknown, but it is more than likely to exceed the official figure. The majority are women and children who have died at sea. They have no voice, they don't carry a suitcase.
 
Exposed in
FluxFestival. Barcelona. 2018
Lo pardal. Fundació Privada Guillem Viladot. Agramunt. 2019
Centre d’Art Maristany. Sant Cugat. 2019