Memory Suitcase by Yuval Yairi

For Israeli photograph Yuval Yairi, suitcases aren’t only good for holding clothes and other toiletries during trips. Yairi has repurposed a number of suitcases as his canvas for photographic prints documenting his journey around Israel. The images he captured on the excursion weave a narrative that is preserved on the “potent and familiar” form of the suitcase. For Yairi, the remembrance is cultural and features the abandoned houses of fleeing Palestinian Arabs during the 1948 and 1967 wars, while other depictions are making the transition from forgotten past to the present. The project, Memory Suitcase, reads with the same nostalgia as sepia photographs, as the tangible textures of the suitcases show through and color Yairi’s memories with emotion, poignancy, and sincerity.