Rubber Bands and a Shoebox Jigsaw Puzzle by Paul Labonte

Paul Labonté has been photographing the things people keep and the things they carry since before Instagram gave everyone a camera. He trained in darkrooms. His first book documented graffiti writers. His fifth was described as an analog Instagram: photographs taken on a phone, printed on paper, held in the hand.

This puzzle is one image: a Nike Air box, opened, full of rubber-banded bills, held by two hands. It is not a subtle photograph. It is also not what it looks like. Look long enough and it becomes something quieter and an object of aspiration, of saving, of the particular meaning a shoebox can hold when you grew up treating it like a safe.

500 pieces. 17 by 25 inches.