Radhika Chitalia Paints Over Late Father's Passport as Grief Tribute

Copenhagen-based illustrator and designer Radhika Chitalia has transformed her late father's expired passport into a painted memory capsule, using gouache to cover visas, immigration stamps, and blank pages. The project began spontaneously after her father's death, as a way to cope with grief and fill pages he never got to fill. Her father, who loved to travel and had planned to explore the world with her mother in retirement, passed away before that chance. The passport, now an artifact of past travel methods, serves as both a personal time capsule and a posthumous father-daughter tribute. Chitalia's practice, driven by interests in memories, psychology, and emotions, often incorporates natural pigments and motifs from Indian folk traditions. She has also painted on other found documents belonging to her father and shares progress on Instagram and Behance. The work highlights the intersection of personal memory and the changing nature of travel documentation.