Briefcase, 2009

Maciej Kurak’s Briefcase is an outdoor sculpture in the form of a giant suitcase, placed at the entrance to Poznań-Ławica Airport’s terminal. The work was created in 2009.

The object retains all the details of a classic briefcase, including a nameplate bearing the artist’s own name. Its monumental form gives the impression of abandoned luggage too large to fit inside the building. It evokes the pressing issue of people’s growing accumulation of possessions.

Briefcase becomes an ironic symbol of contemporary life — defined by haste, mobility, and the urge to acquire. With subtle humor, the artist comments on the cultural obsession with excess and on the act of packing itself — not only as a logistical necessity but also as an emotional gesture, a desire to take as much as possible “with us,” even when it makes no practical sense.

The work was created in cooperation with the Wielkopolska Society for the Encouragement of Fine Arts.