Small arty presents for total strangers
It started as a joke, a mail out of twenty tiny presents enclosed in matchboxes to friends, containing gifts so personal that they could safely be tracked back to me, despite being sent anonymously. Then came the suggestion that I start leaving them randomly, like a kind of calling card, on a whim, wherever I went. Two years on and I’m still doing just that. Matchboxes containing everything from tea bags, miniature harmonicas, baby babushka dolls, Spiderman knitted fingerpuppets, ten-pin bowling sets and a crazy amount of novelty erasers have been left around Sydney and the world; their contents and locations blogged semi-religiously. After a year, the donations started trickling in. People who had found out about the project started sending their findings, little gifts arrived in international matchboxes or in paperbags with tiny hearts printed on them. Boxes have been left as far as Paris, dropped into the handbags of unsuspecting women, on windowsills and in galleries. Currently there is a slight problem of distribution, with excess boxes building up in my bag as I trek from work to home everyday. So if you want a box, or have any suggestions, I’m all ears.
Tagged: matchbox project
Also by SONYA GEE
Bams and Ted pop-up store in Sydney
It’s one thing to base a clothing collection on a film heroine, but Sydney art duo, bams and ted, have taken it one step further, dedicating the entire contents of their pop up store to a fresh fictional hero every four weeks. The bams and ted store, which is currently part of the three-month Arcade shop residency at the newly re-launched Gaffa gallery in Sydney has already paid tribute to the lovely but missing schoolgirl Miranda from Peter Weir’s Picnic at Hanging Rock and Grace Kelly’s femme fatale Frankie from Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief, with super sleuthing detective Jessica Lange of television series Murder She Wrote to come in April. Read more
Last week, a bunch of young Sydney creatives were asked to describe their vision for the city in the time it usually takes to run to the bus stop, boil an egg, or listen to a decent pop song. Three Minute Sydney launched the two week Creative Sydney festival, the city’s first winter festival to celebrate and promote local creative industries. Sydney’s acclaimed but extremely humble comic artist Matt Huynh stole the show with a three minute time lapse video presentation, a speedy sequence of comics created one frantic Sunday afternoon. From the iconic Eternity message chalked on the city sidewalks to scenes from the city’s late night meat-market bars, indie gigs and packed trains, Huynh explored the places and stories of Sydney in black and white. Read more
Bababa International: curries, manicures, pooch shows
Somewhere in a Sydney park, exact location undisclosed, sits a custom built wooden house fit for one. And if you happen to stumble across it, you simply lift it up, climb into the hole dug underneath it and make yourself at home. The makeshift shelter, which loosely resembles a human-sized kennel, is the latest work of Sydney art collective the Bababa International. The trio, consisting of Stephen Russell, Ivan Ruhle and Tom Melick (fourth member Giles Thackway has temporarily absconded to Mexico and is probably wearing a protective swine flu mask at present), say there are plans to install a radio at some point to make the shelter more homely and install similar constructions in parks across Sydney. And they reluctantly offer some hints of this particular houses’ location, saying it’s located in a park in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, past a hedge and close to a tennis court. Read more
YOU'RE SAYING (2)
Sonya said | 12 April, 2009
Hey Katie!
The blog address is http://www.blurty.com/users/matchboxproject
I love found mag! And thank you for your offer of matchboxes, I’ve got heaps at the moment thank you. If you’re in Syd, I’m having a show with the project next week at The Wall:
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/event.php?eid=75984945755&ref=mf
Son
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Katie Blake said | 11 March, 2009
Hi Sonya
I was happy to read about this ongoing project/ habit of yours. But am sorry I didn’t see where I could read more about it if that were possible. It’s interesting and given one of my favorite publications “Found” magazine I can’t help but want to tie the two together somehow if briefly as a showcase for you both.
Shall I send you my old matchboxes to be used or do you have so many you can’t use more?
Cheers,
Katie