From April to July 2025 I wrote handwritten letters on circular paper to people in twenty different countries throughout the world. I invited them to reply and I set up an International Business Reply Service through An Post with funds from the Donegal County Council Artists Bursary.
Each letter was different, a moment captured in a collection of words, and I posted all the letters from Buncrana on 1st July to England, Germany, Turkey, Kosovo, Maine, Newfoundland, Philippines, Korea, Poland, India, Taiwan, Iceland, Spain, Norway, Ghana, Columbia, Iran, Cyprus, Italy and New Zealand.
I waited, Poland was first to arrive by Newfoundland was the first to reply. After almost a year of waiting I had received eight physical replies, two digital replies, seven letters were not received, and three were unable to reply.
With permission I displayed the messages received in my studio and I invited the public to come and see the responses, hear the story of their journey and discuss the value of sending and receiving personal mail in a world of digital messages.
The event on 14th June 2026 began with a performance where I wrote a circular letter to the people who had come to the event. Like the other letters I wrote, I wrote about what was happening in the present and my own thoughts an feelings in this particular moment in time. As it turned out I was feeling regret for the letters that did not arrive, both as part of this project and in the past. Often it was because I did not follow standard postal protocol despite being aware of it.
To atone for my past discrepancies, which included not writing the sender address on the back, not recording the tracking number of the registered item and then loosing the receipt, and keeping an item for years before packaging it suitably for postage, I promised to send letters written by the people at the event by registered post to anywhere in the world on the next working day.
And I did it. I ensured all postal protocols were adhered to, I went the very next day and paid a significant amount to money for tracked and signed for delivery, and as of now, some two weeks later, the letters have been released from customs and are apparently on their way to the receiver.
It is strange how, now in this super fast, speed of light exchange of communication, international video calling and data transfer in seconds that a little note sealed in an envelope can wander through the world for weeks, privately without anything or anyone knowing the message before it is opened by the intended recipient. And of those missing; well maybe gathering dust in a warehouse, maybe lost down the back of a seat, or waiting customs clearance as it’s value is decided by officials. Or maybe lost, but not opened; a secret, something personal waiting to be found.
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