As a current resident at Rainmaker Artist Residency, in Portland Oregon, I and fellow resident artist Jason Berlin co-curated an exhibition titled dispersal: mail art! I got interested in working on a mail art project as I kept learning that artists and friends in my life were participating in mail art, mainly Jason Berlin and Matthew Rose. When I work on a curatorial project, it’s usually because I see connections sprouting before my eyes among the members of my arts community. All I have to do is create the conditions for this sprout to grow and blossom. It doesn’t feel like work, it does take time and energy, of course, but the results are usually unexpected and magical when I’ve opened up space for artists to do what they will.
The show exhibited work that was mailed in from all over the U.S. and also from Spain, Denmark, Japan, Canada, and France. Dispersal: mail art, exhibited in October of 2016, doesn’t end with us. We are redistributing the artwork, so each artist will receive someone else’s artwork, along with a list of all participating artists’ addresses. This is the celebratory aspect of mail art, that it isn’t about commodification of artwork, but about sharing it, sending it, receiving something, “add and pass”-ing. So, today, Jason and I spent several hours stuffing legal size envelopes with art and a mini-zine that includes images of everyone’s artwork who participated.
You can read a review of dispersal: mail art show in Kolaj magazine #18!
dispersal: mail art exhibition gallery
