Photos: Private collections and the collections of the Tallinn City Museum. Collage by Jaana Päeva.

This artistic research project investigates experience-based design principles in handbag design, focusing on extending a product's lifespan by strengthening the emotional bond between an object and its owner.

The project explores the relationship between sensory memories and product descriptions preserved in people's recollections in order to understand how products are perceived and experienced, which experiences become lasting memories, what kinds of emotions make objects memorable, and how these memories influence emotional attachment. The knowledge gained will be integrated into the design process to develop strategies for extending the lifespan of products.

The research focuses on handbags because they are everyday objects that play an important role in their owners' lives. While a handbag's exterior is public—reflecting its owner's cultural and social values, multiple roles, and everyday needs—its interior remains hidden, personal, and private. A handbag possesses both functional and symbolic value. This dual character, together with its significance in everyday life, makes it an ideal object through which to collect memories and translate them into design knowledge.

The project begins by collecting people's memories related to handbags, both through the Tallinn City Museum exhibition Everyday Companions: Handbags 1900–1950 and via an online survey. Based on the collected material, a new handbag collection will be developed in collaboration with Kadri Kruus. Feedback on the resulting prototypes will then be gathered and analysed. The knowledge generated throughout the project will help assess the value of experience-based memories as a source of design knowledge and establish a foundation for incorporating such insights into future design practice.

Project partners: Tallinn City Museum; Kadri Kruus – Bags and Accessories

Project team: Jaana Päeva, Maris Rosenthal, Kadri Kruus, Sirle Rohusaar

Funding: Ministry of Culture of Estonia, Artistic Research Support Programme for the Cultural and Creative Sectors

Participate in the survey

Take part anonymously in the survey "A Bag That Matters to Me." The collected data will be used for this research project and related publications.

https://forms.gle/dB4ZzstgXiLQsUix6

Further information:

Jaana Päeva
Research Fellow and Principal Investigator
Estonian Academy of Arts
jaana.paeva@artun.ee