Odyssey of objects

Odyssey of Objects or Nomads, transients and wanderers, is an artistic project that explores trajectories of movement, displacement, and migration through objects.

Developed in relation to contexts such as the Metzineres community, the work engages with experiences marked by instability, transition, and shifting forms of belonging. Rather than representing these trajectories directly, the project approaches objects as carriers and proxies of lived experience, entities that move across contexts, accumulating traces of use, memory, and transformation.

The project draws on the structure of the mythological odyssey, reinterpreting its stages—departure, wandering, trial, hospitality, and return—through contemporary experiences of movement and marginalisation.

Process

The project unfolds through a series of encounters centred on objects and their trajectories.

Participants are invited to share, exchange, or reflect on objects that accompany them, tracing how these items move between places, people, and situations. These exchanges generate narratives grounded in lived experience, where objects function as entry points into broader questions of mobility, displacement, and survival.

In this process, hosting extends through objects: they become vehicles through which relationships are formed, and through which proximity is constructed across distance and difference.

Forms

The research is translated into visual, performative, and narrative forms:

Suitcase archive: an adapted suitcase functioning as a portable archive, containing a selection of objects gathered through the project. Each object is accompanied by a narrative and positioned within a system of constellations of experience, structured in relation to stages of the mythological odyssey, such as farewell, wandering, challenge, hospitality, and return, through which experiences of movement, loss, care, and transformation are articulated.

Photographic series: images that trace the presence and circulation of these objects across different contexts

Performative situations: encounters in which the suitcase is opened, activated, and its contents narrated or exchanged, producing temporary constellations of relation Textual fragments — narratives emerging from the objects and their trajectories, maintaining their open and shifting character

These forms operate together as a mobile system, in which the suitcase functions as both container and narrative device, allowing experiences of movement and displacement to be carried, shared, and re-articulated.

Context

The project was developed across different contexts, including collaborations with marginalised communities such as Metzineres, shelter for women who use drugs and survive violences in Barcelona.

It was first presented at International AIDS congres in Munich, within the Global Village programme, and later activated in the public space at [Stattpark Olga](https://olga089.de/2024/07/20/eine-odysee-in-objekten-mittwoch-24-7-trash-test-donnerstag-25-7/), an alternative cultural site and living infrastructure.

The work was presented by Aura Roig, Silvie Ojeda, and Christina Schultz, situating the project within broader discussions around care, migration, and lived experience.

The project was presented through the activation of a mobile suitcase archive, allowing its contents to be shared, narrated, and reconfigured in different contexts.

It forms part of a broader inquiry into movement, proximity, and the ways in which experiences of migration and displacement can be articulated through indirect and material forms.

Credits

Concept and direction: Christina Schultz

Developed in collaboration with: Andre, Angelica, Belén, Catalina, Dakota, Fia, Isabel, Jazmin, Maria, Marta, Mia, Monica, Melody, Nadia, Nuria, Oued, Samir, Sophie, Silvie

Presented by: Aura Roig, Silvie Ojeda, Christina Schultz

Object construction: Lars Petrova Taylor (woodwork)