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Lose your luggage? It could be on the internet.

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) on Apr 8th 2009 at 12:30PM

Isthisyourluggage.com sounds like either a great website for people who've lost their luggage to watch for their missing belongings, or like a black market scam where bad guys might steal your luggage and then sell it to you for ransom online.

It is neither. It's an art project. What kind of art? The creepy kind.

Ever wonder what happens to unclaimed luggage? The airport and airline will try and find the owner for a little while, but if they can't, they just donate the whole thing to a charity auction. So, if your suitcase is accidentally sent to say, Botswana instead of Boston, and the airline can't figure out what happened, your tennis shoes and undies could be sold to the highest bidder.

The artist behind isthisyourluggage.com attends these auctions. Are you putting this together yet?

The artist (not sure whether ""lunalaboo" at gmail is a man or a woman) cracks the suitcases, photographs the contents, and posts it all online. You can contact the artist if you think the stuff is yours.

Says lunalaboo:

"I go to these auctions and buy the cases so I can photograph them for my weird voyeuristic passion. The reason for the web site? I would really like to try to find the people who own my suitcases, so if you have any friends who have lost a case please get them to have a look."

and

"It's a little odd but not as odd as stamp collecting."

We beg to differ. And we don't know whether to thank you or scold you, lunalaboo. We looked in one of the cases on the site and it totally gave us the heebie jeebies.

Filed under: Stories, What's in Your Pack?