I Commissioned Some Wooden Luggage

<p>While backpacking in Europe as a teenager in the 1980s Nick Benson stumbled on a window display in a Venetian gallery that caught his eye: it featured a beautifully carved duffle-bag sculpted from wood complete with drawers. For the itinerant Benson this <em>objet d</em>'<em>art </em>was a source of fasci- nation: you could keep your travel bag by your bed and be ready to go but it could also be a useful piece of furniture...I would have commissioned some wooden luggage if not for the price tag... instead it became a metaphor and took on a life of its own. I didn't realize it then but it's the embodiment of wanting opposing things at once. It seems to sum up this permanent sense of duality-rootedness and restlessness (Interview with Benson January 19 2024).</p>