Every family has a story. What are the objects that tell yours?

Illustrator Lisa Brown has created an empty suitcase for you to fill with images, photographs and words which describe what your family brought with them and to help you imagine what you might bring with you if you were forced to leave your home and resettle in a new place.

Get Inspired.

Think of an object that is meaningful to you or to your family. It can be something that your family brought with them when they were moving to a new place, or an item that you would want to bring if you had to leave your home suddenly.

Get Thinking.

Now that you have picked an object, what is the story that you want to tell? And how will you tell it? Dig deeper into the story of your object. Find pictures of the object, or pictures that remind you of it. If you are interviewing a family member or friend, save quotes that you feel are important to the story. 

Get Creating.

Download the illustrated suitcase by signing up below. Then pack it to tell your story. You can choose to draw, write, photograph or collage it. Be as creative as you’d like.

From illustrator Lisa Brown

I have always loved to think about the past. And these days, more and more, my thoughts are of my own family’s past: who they were, where they came from, how they spent their time in the old country and the new. So this project was very dear to my heart. 

Like many American families, information about my forebears is murky at best, at least to me. I reached out to relatives for a little clarity, and got just that. A little. Here’s the name of a town, here’s the name of a ship, here’s how various family members were related, here’s who came and who came later on, and who were left behind to perish from disease, pogroms, and genocide. And what did they bring with them? Very little that lasted, it seems. Gone is the money for bribes, the shoes, the socks, the hats and gloves. But here are the photographs; faces peering out from the beginning of the last century. Faces that look like mine.

They came to American to have a better life. They came to America to survive. Exactly like most of those who came before, those who came after, and those who are coming now.