Post Secrets 

After posting a Blog on post secrets I thought that I would post some more post secrets on here as I think they are so inspiring, and an encouraged way to deal with things which have not been dealt with or secrets that haunt you or play in the deepest depths of your mind.  I think that the whole idea is a way forward for us all.

It all Started when Frank Warren set out with an idea for community art project, “Post Secrets” initiallyit began as a commission for art installation in 2004, But has since turned into a full-time career for him.
  

In November 2004 he printed 3,000 postcards inviting people to share a secret, something that was true, some thing that they had never told anyone, and post it back. After several weeks he stopped passing them out but the secrets kept coming back.

This idea become his project and in turn captured the world’s imagination. The instructions were simple,
but the results were extraordinary.

He began posting the postcards on a web blog, the secrets were both provocative and profound, the cards them selves become works of art. To this day he has thousands upon thousands of
“Post secrets” sent to him, which he has exhibited and had it made into books

Home-made postcards made from cardboard, old photographs, wedding invitations, and other personal items artfully decorated arrived from all over the world, with secrets written in all languages.

The extraordinary collection brings together a selection of bits of strangers personalities.
Collectively it exposes individual yet personal human emotions.

"It touches on every aspect of the human experience"

  

The idea was personal to him; he was struggling with secrets in his own life and used the project to allow him to reflect with parts of the past that he had been hiding from

This made me think of how an initial idea can change dramatically, how personality and experience reflects within the reasons for a design and how the response can change outcomes entirely.

He quotes ;

“Maybe growing up I felt that my family had some hidden, deep, dark secret that I never found out about, and now
as an adult, I’m trying to search for this possible secret –whatever that might be. I don’t know. My background is in business. I have no artistic training or education and sometimes I feel like this project kind of found me. I really don’t have a good explanation as to why I am doing it. I feel like I’m on this journey that’s very gratifying.”

 This inspires me because it has come from a conceptual idea which turned in to a collective collaboration of everyone’s personal life experiences,which in turn allowed him to map and plan his subject terrain creating a serendipity that almost goes full circle

The demise of the commons

He has turned the concept of normality which is common in society into something questionable.
Using the concept of Art/design, Abnormality is more prominent in personal experiences of different individuals.

"Design is a form of
expression of an individuals personality"

Some times the initial idea can be quite different to the end result

Frank Warren personal experience was What influenced his initial idea Using the ‘imperfect’ personality (personal experiences) of other individuals to ‘comfort’ his own ‘imperfections’ Within the collection are his own “Post Secrets” but nobody knows what they are.

I personally found it a knowledgeable way of communicating individual thought patterns, shearing, “secrets” of his own personality but at the same time showing the changing thought patterns of society as a whole.