The Fabric of Modernity: Place, Memory, and Materiality in Yin Xiuzhen’s Portable Cities

Abstract

This article presents a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of Chinese artist Yin Xiuzhen's seminal series, Portable Cities (ongoing since early 2000s), arguing that it constitutes a critical artistic methodology for responding to the conditions of global modernity. In an era defined by accelerated mobility, cultural homogenization, and the erosion of local distinctiveness, the series—featuring miniature urban landscapes crafted from city residents' donated clothing and encased within standardized suitcases—transcends mere representation to perform active cultural work. Through the integrated lenses of media studies, formal analysis, memory studies, and place theory, this study examines the suitcase not as a passive container but as a portable heuristic device or "worldmaking" apparatus. The analysis sequentially unpacks four interconnected operations of this device: (1) functional rupture transforming the suitcase from mundane object to "thing" and mixed-media ensemble; (2) formal collision between global form and local materials generating specific narrative structures; (3) performative archiving materializing social frameworks of memory; and (4) place-making as praxis forging belonging from shared material heritage. The conclusion posits that Portable Cities offers a resilient model for negotiating displacement, challenging homogenizing globalization by asserting the agency of the local, the worn, and the handmade.