Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Mystery Letters.

It is a cheesy missive, but certainly true, that if we all just took a moment to smile or be kinder to one another the world would be a better place. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a goodie goodie who wants everything to be sunshine and roses—hell, I love me a good smart ass! But I also really enjoy hearing stories of cool people doing nice things. Like this, for example.
Two artists, Lenka + Micha, decided to send a hand written letter/postcard to every single person in the small town of Cushendall. Every single resident got a note. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.






"In April 2009, we sent a personal, handwritten letter to each of the 467 households in the small Irish village of Cushendall. We hoped these unsolicited letters would prompt neighbourly discussion, spreading across the town, promoting community curiosity." — Lenka & Micha




Pretty cool, no? It's funny, on the one hand technology is keeping us more connected than ever before: twitter, facebook, blogs, email, text, IM. Yet it is precisely these things that are keeping us disconnected as well. We have created so many ways to avoid seeing one another (meeting for lunch suddenly becomes less pressing when you've had a juicy IM session). Letter writing is pretty much a lost art form. That's why this project seemed especially cool. What about you guys, when was the last time you wrote a letter? Do you remember?

Images: Mysterious Letters Blog

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4 comments:

  1. Oh I love this project. Their ultimate goal is to send a letter to everyone in the WORLD! Imagine that. It's such a lovely idea. I saw a clip somewhere of the townsfolk being interviewed about the letters and some of them were actually angry and upset about it. It made me sad that such a lovely and innocent gesture (because they all are sweet letters) could be perceived negatively... a sad reflection on our world I think.

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  2. what an absolutely wonderful idea. they wrote such sweet things too. I hope it brought the town closer together.

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  3. Very cool. I wonder if I would be happy to a get a letter or if I would be like the angry townsfolk. I hope happy, because I like the idea, but if I didn't have the context to put it in I'm afraid I would be ignorant to the beauty of it. I sent 3 letters yesterday! And I hope the receivers are happy folks because of them.

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  4. Coooolest ever! Hope everyone 'got' it and didn't think they were being stalked by weirdos. Dying to find out what the result of the letters was!

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