Dec 2014 arrived and all of a sudden I was inviting the magnificent humans on my mailing list to partake in a little postal project.

I called it… enveloping (the human) connection (in 36.5 letters)

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The message went out:

To the very human you,

This project is bare bones seeking.
It’s a small, quiet experiment in reaching out and rethreading connection.
It’s about enveloping the atmosphere of moments, for them to be unwrapped later, somewhere else, by another.

…  to reveal full invite, unwrap little envelope above

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The lettering began

Inspiration arrived from the given prompts and objects encountered in my everyday travels. Distance, both personal and geographic, crafted my curiosity into collaged correspondences. Wandering between parks and postboxes, thoughts and processes, one state and another, I formed (or reformed), enveloped and posted a documentation of musings and moments.

All while pondering:
When there are far more immediate methods of communication at hand, what exactly do you put in a letter nowadays?

Other questions quickly arose:
What is it, exactly, that makes something human?
What defines a letter? (let alone a half one)
Why have I come to fear my own handwriting? and
Will these enveloped somethings be the connective threads we’re hoping for?

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Sample of the resultant letters

Many thanks to all participants for responding with openness, enthusiasm and creativity.

Though not an obligation, or encountered in each case, replies soon flew in. Connections were revealed, questioned and seemingly strengthened over a series of back and forth. These threaded correspondences are being tied together and sorted for circulation … stay tuned.

(Update: the reply series can be found here)

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19 Jun This entry was published on June 19, 2015 at 8:10 am. It’s filed under art, creative documentation, postal projects, projects and tagged 2014, 2015, Art, collage, connection, enveloping, experiment, human, letters, poetry, post, postal projects, project, snail mail, south australia, threads, western australia. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.