#social creativity

When everything in the mailbox is noise, one tiny piece of signal becomes an art object to treasure. As postal mail grows less and less useful for day-to-day communication, it becomes ever more valuable as an artistic medium and a jumping off point for community-building.

via Donovan Beeson.

Some of the projects listed below are still active. Some aren't. If you're inspired by one that's defunct, why not start your own? Stamps are cheap.

In the Neighborhood Postcard Project, residents share something they love about their neighborhood on a postcard. The cards are delivered to random people in a different neighborhood of the same city. Organizer Hunter Franks and his League of Creative Interventionists hope to break down stereotyping and build community bonds.

Here's an activation connecting Detroit and Grosse Point residents:

On external-heart-drive, anyone can request a handwritten letter from the anonymous blogger. Past letters range from relationship advice to anecdotes about shrooms. 

PostCrossing was one of the first communities to connect strangers via postcard swaps, and it's still booming. Check out this tiny participant:

Speaking of very young participants, the Postcard Happiness Project invites you to send happy postcards to people (often children with serious illnesses) who could really use a cheerful surprise.

In a reversal of the previous paradigm, the EFM Postcard Project, the terminally ill Dr. Elizabeth McClung and her wife spent the last months of Dr. McClung's life sending beautiful postcards to anyone in the world who requested one. 

On global swap site MailArt.de, recipients request small, mailed works on themes like "the oldest object you have," "emptiness," "high art low life," and "something related to conflict." 

The Letter Writers' Alliance (source of the image at the top of this post) has thousands of members pledging to preserve the art of the handwritten letter. Membership includes tools for letter-writing, participation in letter-writing projects, and an invite to a brick-and-mortar Chicago clubhouse.

Reinvention could be a model for your own mail art show: A single curator asks his city for submissions to a six gallery, non-juried, not-for-sale art exhibition, with the only restriction on medium being "whatever you can get through the postal system." Check the result out:

Changemaker Spotlight: Brandon "B" McEachern & Broccoli City 

B gives a damn about people and about the earth.

He's pushing toward sustainability in the neighborhoods least often associated with "green" lifestyles. That perception is dead wrong, even if B's sometimes the only one in the room who gets it. Just look at the role of public transit: In wealthy 'burbs, it's a sustainability sacrifice for former drivers. In urban communities, it's a ride to work.

Spotlight: The OneWall Project

Denver's pedestrian-centric 16th Street Mall is tightly packed with retail shops and eateries, but alleys between buildings have historically been dumping grounds for business trash and restaurant grease. The OneWall Project, a push toward more large-scale public art in Denver, approached businesses about transforming these 16-foot wide alleys into community performance venues, micro-retail locations, and art galleries.

#TBT: Dolores Huerta

Mark Anthony Thomas is the MIT Sloan Fellow working with the city of Los Angeles as Senior Advisor on Livability. The above photoset includes some of Mark's photos of illegal dumping in LA neighborhoods.

CTZN: You're a poet, living in one of the world's creative capitals, and your big focus is on street cleaning. What's creative about that?

MAT: I've met with 70-80 people so far. I haven't said no to anybody. I was recently looking at the illegal dumping issue with some day laborers, and getting their perspective on why people dump in certain neighborhoods, and that shaped my thinking. And by spending time in the fashion district, that's when you see the entrepreneurial spirit of the city in an intense way. Manufacturing is so disconnected from so many people who curate conversations. LA has 300,000+ workers in manufacturing. To spend time with them and see the apparel marts, see people selling garments, see how a piece works its way up to the street, to the retail side, it's an inspiring perspective. I've tried to have an open mind. I've been on rides with the sanitation workers. I've seen all sides of things. There's things I think people would be really proud of with the city... there are programs that are models for the rest of the world. Then there areas that have room for improvement. 

I actually think that's where the organic takes over. You don't necessarily, as the city, want to steer. You don't want to control where creative artists will take a neighborhood. The city's role is to make sure they have the minimum platform for success. We all know that the city is not in this place yet, but once we have walkable neighborhoods, clean streets, the creatives will take it from there and make this city more dynamic. That's the future of LA.

#TBT: Bella Abzug