DESCRIPTION:
BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE
Media Installation with objects, video, and sound: 2010

Pamela Z's BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE is comprised of three components: A multi-media performance work, a gallery exhibition, and an interactive web-based artwork. This video shows documentation of the gallery exhibition, which ran at the Krannert Art Museum in Champaign, Illinois January through May 2010.

Baggage Allowance is a sonically and visually layered work focusing on the concept of baggage in all its literal and metaphorical permutations. Through multi-channel sound, interactive video, and sculptural objects, Baggage Allowance explores the connections between people and the belongings (and memories) they cart around. Drawing from Ms. Z's extensive traveling and cartage experiences, text from found sources, and interviews with travelers who speak poetically about their memories of train travel and flying and their numerous baggage-related stories, the work touches upon the ball-and-chain-ness of dragging one's things all over the world. The installation consists of multiple audio, video, and sculptural elements including a weeping steamer trunk, a mock X-ray machine that reveals secrets when bags pass through it, and a vintage suitcase inside of which lies a woman sleeping and worrying.