Kathleen Vance Plants Miniature Landscapes Into Old Suitcases

Artist Kathleen Vance has chosen a quite different way of showing her artistic skills. The environmental artist decided to pack entire ecosystems into vintage suitcases and trunks. With the series titled Traveling Landscapes, the artist merges travel and nature.

“The cases act to abstract the idea of travel and romanticize its idyllic qualities. I am always on the lookout for cases that have some indication of travel, with notes and markers which give a feeling that they have really been used for used for transportation of someone’s special or personal items,” the artist told Colossal and added that she wants to relate to a time when travel was slower and the distances between us and our homelands and foreign landscapes were more difficult to access.

The New York City-based Vance shares images of her creations on Instagram where she has posted more than 200 photos of suitcases. We selected a few interesting ones. Scroll down and check them out.

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Thank you @grace.l.ebert and @colossal for the feature on my #travelinglandscapes !! . . New York City-based artist Kathleen Vance creates lush landscapes brimming with green mosses, foliage, and rocky surfaces all stored in an unusual carrier: vintage suitcases. Vance’s ongoing Traveling Landscapes series connects travel and natural resources, inclining her to incorporate active water components into many of her miniature ecosystems. The artist tells Colossal she hopes to convey that “water and our natural open landscapes are our legacy to the future generations and something that must be protected and cherished.” Her more recent pieces, like “Traveling Landscape, Spelunker,” deviate from her previous work by including caverns replete with hanging stalactites and stalagmites, or icicle-like rock formations, that she sculpts by hand. Utilizing found vessels, Vance says she wants to “relate to a time when travel was slower and the distances between us and our homelands and foreign landscapes were more difficult to access.” Each portable environment is designed and retrofit for specific steamer trunks and train cases. The cases act to abstract the idea of travel and romanticize its idyllic qualities. I am always on the look out for cases that have some indication of travel, with notes and markers which give a feeling that they have really been used for used for transportation of someone’s special or personal items. . . See the whole article here: https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/kathleen-vance-traveling-landscapes/ . . #travelinglandscape #vintage #landscape #sculpture #environment #environmentalart #travel #suitcase #ecosystem #luggage #water #contemporaryart #buildyourdreamcollection

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Meet Luce! My newest #travelinglandscape #sculpture

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