The Story
Smartphone suitcases
The project was inspired by collaboration with Syrians who had recently arrived on a UNHCR resettlement programme to Coventry, a UK city of sanctuary.
An archive of keys dating from the 11th Century to 1940 in the city museum, led us to focus on SIM cards as “keys” for unlocking ‘smartphone suitcases,’ that open up channels to loved ones and personal digital archives.
‘The sim card is like the petrol in the car, the phone is the car…. It provides a way for my children to remember the faces, the places, the language of Syria, and for our family to build a secure future life here.’
Abdul, Syria and Coventry 2018
Miniature Messages
A local silversmith engraved SIM-sized artworks with hand-drawn illustrations by participants, each one serving as a message to the future.
Participants asked for their bespoke pieces to be made into wearable pendants, and for their portraits to be taken so that they could share them with loved ones over digital messaging platforms.
Community archives
The gold-plated SIM artworks, blending traditions of craft and place-making to embody individual hopes for the future, were added to the Herbert Museum and Art Gallery's collection and displayed alongside the city’s archive of keys.
This first chapter of the project in Coventry was commissioned by GRAIN projects in 2017 and led to a residency in the Department of Digital Humanities, Kings College London (2020–22).
‘A key to home: The role of the SIM card in refugee resettlement’ (Hingley, 2022) is published in the journal Imaginations: Special Issue on Migrations.
