Dearest (2020)

Keely O'Brien

Various

Area: City Centre
Location: Various

Materials: Ink on cardstock. 6"x4" postcards

Program: Community
Ownership: Civic
Sponsored By: City of Richmond

Description of Work

Each community participant received a pack of three postcards featuring prints of original illustrations. The illustrations depicted different species of local birds (a robin, a crow, and a swallow) with blank notes in their mouths. The postcard pack also included a handmade zine titled "How to Send a Postcard" that offered creative tips and ideas for meaningful correspondence via snail mail.

Artist Statement

A community art project that encouraged connection, interpersonal exchange and safe methods of social contact through the lens of creative snail mail. The project responded to the experience of loneliness, grief and isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Snail mail offered participants a reassuringly playful and tangible way to express love and care for their community. Each postcard issued by the artist featured a messenger bird carrying a note in its beak. Participants were invited to fill-in-the-blank on the note. For example, they could write: love, hope, sympathy, health, solidarity, or comfort. In this way, the sharing creativity and generosity will ripple gently outwards into the larger community with each original participant acting as a link to even more postcard recipients.