ENVELOPES FROM ELSEWHERE
Archival inkjet prints, Japanese stab binding
This book contains photographs of the backs of the envelopes I received in the mail during the first two years I lived alone in Canada. It forms a document of isolation and connection to others across time and distance following the transition to a new country.
Does anyone think of me after I’ve moved away? In a world in which most of our interactions are digital, fleeting, easily deleted, hard to hang onto, what can we hold in our hands that reminds us that people are thinking of us? I moved alone to Canada in 2016. Things didn’t initially work out well; it was a lonely time. I came home from work each day and checked the mailbox. It was usually empty. Who is thinking of me? Occasionally family and friends, but mostly companies who automatically generate newsletters, bills, account statements, and other correspondence. Remarkably little mail these days is personal. Yet somehow I still needed a non-electronic connection to the world beyond me, and thus I kept each envelope and photographed the back of it as evidence of ties to the larger external world when I didn’t feel them internally. The project ended when I moved out of my lonely apartment, and in with someone else. Now some days I forget to check the mailbox entirely.
