Packing becomes an everyday activity while travelling and presents an instance where human and non-human actors are engaged in processes that are mobile, fluid and participatory. Although packing can be considered as a mundane, everyday[2] process, it is highly engaging and creative, and provides a scenario where bodies and materials are brought into proximity with each other. Packing, as well as the many other everyday processes undertaken while travelling, presents subtle material interactions that afford creative ways to investigate and value the mobile interactions that are often beyond our own subjective decisions. As part of my research, I have photographed myself and fellow travellers packing and unpacking bags. This work collates excerpts of these stop-motion photographic sequences together. It functions as an annotation of the movements between the body and the bag, where they begin to move together. Often in the frenzied packing process, where objects are being squeezed and stuffed into the bag, the objects are conceived as fluid, malleable substances,[3] rather than singular forms. A mass of material emerges, through negotiations of the body of the person packing, the objects within the bag, and the bag itself.

I have traced over these key movements, where the body meets the bag, or when the body places an object into the bag and the material of the bag shifts slightly in response. The sketched lines present moments where human and non-human boundaries are blurred; the bodies blend with the materials in the packing process. The sketched lines linger around points of contact, as the material of the body, the bag, and the objects congeal in negotiation with each other.