A suitcase as a PhD? Exploring the potential of travelling containers to articulate the multiple facets of a research thesis

What happens if a PhD Thesis cannot be articulated in a conventional format? What if some notions require other senses to be fully accessed, appreciated, and expressed? What if words alone tell only one portion of the story? Can a suitcase and its complex content be a research thesis? This paper examines these questions via a recent experience where a PhD thesis was designed and developed by the author as a series of travelling containers that include written text and a range of interactive artefacts. 1 More than supporting material, these artefacts are embodied conceptual arguments that transfer ideas and sensations when physically handled. This suitcase system was designed for five main reasons: * to experiment with and display in-action some of the propositions the thesis argues, * to allow readers interpret and construct extra layers of meaning alongside those discussed by the author, * to enable the creation of an asynchronous dialogue with both author and future readers, * to allow readers appreciate some of the tools described in the thesis by touching and playing with them besides reading about them, and * to expand the thesis content beyond what words can describe/define.