Illustrator and designer Radhika Chitalia, based in Copenhagen, has transformed a deeply personal object into an artwork that blends memory, travel, and visual storytelling. Her project began with her late father's expired passport, which she chose to preserve and reinterpret rather than set aside.
Using gouache, Chitalia painted across the passport's visas, stamps, and blank pages, turning its official markings into a layered canvas. The result is a vivid visual archive that reflects both her father's journeys and the places he hoped to see in retirement.
The passport now functions as more than a document. It becomes a memory capsule, carrying traces of family history while also capturing the changing nature of travel itself, as paper visas and stamped pages gradually give way to digital systems.
Chitalia describes the process as a way to explore grief, remembrance, and the stories that remain unfinished. By adding new imagery to an already lived-in object, she created a tribute that connects personal emotion with broader themes of identity and migration.
She has also continued working on other found documents from her father's belongings, extending the same artistic language into a wider body of work. Her practice shows how everyday objects can be reimagined as intimate works of art, preserving meaning in unexpected forms. In the future, projects like this may inspire more artists to turn personal archives into living cultural memory.
