Article

The Emotional Weight of Displaced Objects
Valeria Sacco

Objects are more than just physical items. When displaced, they are capable of acquiring new meanings: a perfume bottle, a piece of fabric, or a standing lamp can suddenly become a fragment of memory, a carrier of history, or an emotional anchor to home. 

Through photography, artists capture not only the objects themselves, but also the weight of their presence and absence - the link between past and present, between original home and current place. Photography is more than documentation; it becomes a tool of remembrance, giving voice to the stories and emotions embedded in the materiality of things. 

During my placement at Street Level Photoworks, I encountered various exhibitions that explored these themes. Three projects in particular resonated strongly with me for the way they reveal how objects serve as emotional and cultural anchors in contexts of migration and displacement. 

My selection includes Nalini (Arpita Shah), Migration Memories (Moira McIver), and FONDS (Morwenna Kearsley). Each exhibition, in its own way, reflects my personal interest in the intersection of material culture, photography, and migration narratives – and collectively, they made me reflect on the complexity of belonging to Scotland, shaped by few of many migration stories. 

In FONDS (2023), objects carry a story of migration and hold personal resonance for each collaborator. In Nalini (2019), they symbolize ancestral connection, and in Migration Memories (2023), objects capture the intimacy of domestic space. Photography turns these objects into visual memory markers, preserving them even when they are physically lost or left behind. The works of Shah, McIver, and Kearsley highlight the power of objects to shape personal and collective histories.

In Nalini, Arpita Shah traces her maternal lineage through her family’s migratory journey across India, Kenya, and the UK. Objects becomes personal archives, deeply embedded in familial stories. They act as tactile bridges between generations of women and the places their lives have touched and intertwined. 

The items photographed are not merely memories of the past; they are active participants in shaping family identity. Each object functions as a portrait, reflecting its relationship to the subject and the layered narrative it carries. The silk sari, in particular, embodies the tactile connection between generations of women in Shah’s family. Once belonging to the artist’s great grandmother, the sari now functions as a symbol of belonging to its place of origin, Nairobi, becoming a powerful anchor of identity. 

The sari has been passed down through four generations of women in Shah’s maternal lineage – from her great grandmother, to her grandmother, to her mother, and now herself. Shah describes the act of wearing it as deeply intimate and transformative: ‘’There is something really sacred in being able to wrap something around your skin that was so tightly wrapped around all three women I came from. Whenever I wear a sari, it just makes me feel good and linked to my heritage.’’ [1]

The act of wrapping the sari around the body becomes a performative gesture, reinforcing a sense of cultural continuity and female generational lineage across three countries. [2]

Moira McIver’s Migration Memories reflects on Scottish-Irish migration, placing everyday household items in dislocated settings, such as landscapes or uninhabited places, emphasizing the disconnection between an object and its original function. These objects lead to questions about the meaning they embodied in a past life, and on what they communicate in the present; the tension between absence and presence can be sensed through the palm of a hand crossed by a strand of red wool in Báinín Dearg (Red Cloth), 2020 [3], which particularly evokes the maternal presence, in referencing the artist’s mother and the emotional threads that tie memory, care, and lineage. McIver describes it as ‘’a red woollen cloth which is traditionally associated with healing and warmth, slipped under a shirt to warm up and help heal a sore shoulder’’ [4], highlighting its deep connection to her mother’s traditions and enduring sense of presence. 

In Migration Memories (2022-2023) [5], a series of landscapes between Glasgow and Donegal traces migration between Northern Ireland and Scotland. One image in particular shows a solitary chair serving as a frame for an uninhabited landscape. The empty chair suggests this was a place once occupied– a sense of people who have since left and of histories interrupted by migration. Photographed within these landscapes, the objects carry an impression of displacement, inviting reflection on the stories they hold. 

Morwenna Kearsley’s FONDS takes a distinct approach to storytelling through objects. Rather than focusing on personal belongings, Kearsley creates ‘’object portraits’’ [6] featuring items shared by Govanhill residents, as part of a collaboration with Greater Govanhill Magazine. The project evolved out of an 18-month residency through Street Level’s Culture Collective programme. 

As the artist suggests, “you can start to build up a portrait of a person through objects’’ [7]. Each item reflects a deeply personal story connected to migration, love, and belonging, giving shape to a journey across geographical and emotional landscapes. Here, photography becomes a way of re-sensing connections – to people, lands, and personal histories – allowing each object to speak beyond itself. 

One example is the story of Kate Samuels, who shares the significance of a pair of red high heels gifted by her grandmother in Ukraine. The shoes appear untouched by time – gleaming, elegant, poised. When the war in Ukraine began, they were placed on a shelf in her Glasgow home, always within sight – as Samuels explains, ‘’everything can change in a second, from having your house, having your family history, to having nothing’’ [8]. 

Morwenna’s composition amplifies this tension. The red shoes, isolated against a vibrant yellow background, appear suspended in an unfamiliar setting, embodying a sense of symbolism through stark visual contrast. Personal stories talk to global narratives, telling not only of a person’s origins, but of what people carried forward to a new place: memories, objects, identities – and how these continue to shape, and be shaped by, the diverse cultural life of Scotland. 

Across these three projects, I have come to see objects not simply as symbols in their materiality, but as active participants in shaping identities. In each body of work, Scotland becomes the context in which personal stories are told, held, and reframed, giving voice to the multiplicity of voices that shape its cultural landscape.

Valeria Sacco is originally from Italy and is currently completing her Master’s in Curatorial Practice (Contemporary Art) at the Glasgow School of Art. Her interests include visual culture and feminist perspectives, and she is currently exploring the intersections between language, memory, and personal storytelling — with a focus on participatory approaches involving objects, photography, and multilingual expression.

[1] Arpita Shah, interview with the author, April 2025.

2 Interview, Arpita Shah, 2019; anywhereblvd.com/interviews/

3 Exhibition: Migration Memories, Moira McIver; Street Level Photoworks, 2023

4 Moira McIver, written response to interview questions, April 2025.

5 Exhibition: Migration Memories, Moira McIver; Street Level Photoworks, 2023

6 Off-Site Exhibition, Morwenna Kearsley – ;FONDS, 2024

7 Interview, Morwenna Kearsley, April 2025

8 Reflector, Govanhill, Valume 05; edited by Morwenna Kearsley