When I wrap an object in lots of bubble wrap, there comes a point when I can no longer perceive what I want to protect. Very often, when this happens, I wonder whether the object is still actually contained within that inner space—no longer visible—or whether, on the contrary, it has disappeared; whether it was never there, or whether I have ended up wrapping something else in its place.

Wrapping something means introducing it into another temporality. In a way, it is isolating it from certain conditions: like when we place an object in a display case or a drawing in a frame. However, when an object is wrapped, something even more interesting happens. In many cases, we stop perceiving the object itself and begin to operate on the basis of substitutions: signs, words, images, labels or photographs that remind us—or promise us— what is supposedly contained within.

Loulou showed me a series of images taken at the V&A East Storehouse. Among them, my attention was drawn to a costume covered in a white wrapping, carefully tailored to its shape. Attached to the outside was a photograph showing what was supposed to be inside. To a certain extent, the wrapping made me imagine what the costume might look like, whether it was there or not. But, above all, it showed that the costume was important enough to be present, even if I could only guess at its appearance. Besides containing or ‘capturing’ the object, the wrapping also conveys value, mediates, presents and exhibits it.

In How to Avoid Being Wrapped, a series of images, objects, and projections can be glimpsed between wrappings, boxes, papers, sewing patterns and maintenance materials. Some of these now contain nothing but air and, in that emptiness, have been transformed into something else.

— Nuria López Blanco