Is there someone you wish you could tell your thoughts, even if you might never receive an answer?
At the end of 2015 Ikon Gallery in Birmingham hosted the ‘Missing Post Office’ (MPO). The exhibition featured a single blue post box, located in direct line of view, in the reception of the Ikon Gallery and where visitors were invited to write and post any type of letter they wanted but didn’t know where to send.
MPO UK was first established in 2013 by the Japanese artist Saya Kubota. The original MPO still operates on a small island called Awashima, where the Eastern and Western ocean currents collide, not far from Hiroshima in South West Japan. Letters to unknown destinations are protected there by Postmaster Mr Nakata.
The premise of the Missing PO Box is that “a letter to anyone, anywhere, at any time, in any language…might one day arrive here with us, and be washed ashore to you as the reader”
The Ikon Gallery held a Birmingham Branch of ‘Missing Post Office UK’. Curator of the exhibition, Eiko Honda, said: “Birmingham is the home to Rowland Hills, the reformer of the British postal system. Japanese statesman Maejima Hisoka imported Hill’s system to Japan during the Meiji-era at the end of the 19th Century. Thus it is a historically and culturally relevant location for the MPO UK PO box.
We receive letters of all sorts; from letters to imaginary friends to future selves, or to somebody the sender misses.”
An extract of a letter from the MPO book published in 2015 included:
“To the person in one hundred years’ time who borrows the same book as me, Will there still be a library in this town, even in 2114? Seeing my name written on the book’s loan card, will you imagine what kind of person I am? I thought I would write to you – who in one hundred years’ time, will borrow this book like I did and see my name, and imagine all kinds of things. To you one hundred years’ later. We like the same book, so we surely could be friends.”
“I felt the time spent working to finalise a letter by selecting words with one’s own hand, writing them and erasing them, thinking of someone/something your thoughts might not arrive to, is a very rich one”. Comments artist Saya Kubota. “And it is wonderful how that can leave the writer’s hands through the great system called postal service by placing a stamp on it.” Kubota added: “I would like as many people as possible to experience the remarkable time where they would sit in front of a blank letter with a pen in their hand.”
Letters received will be shown at the upcoming exhibition at the Daiwa Foundation, London, between January 19 and February 22 2016.
Words: Gemma Harris
