Monday 10 June 2013

Life Details: Collaborative Postcards by Water Kwong, Grace Ip, Yanyi Choi and Carol Archer

The project was born in the evening of  June 5, 2013 when Choi Yanyi (Yanyi),  Ip Chun Yan (Grace), Kwong Ka Ming (Water) and Carol Archer (Ou Lizhe) met in the Carol's office in the Visual Studies Department at Lingnan University. Yanyi, Water and Grace had participated in the collaborative postcard-making in the Contemporary Drawing course in the first part of 2013, and Grace had also made collaborative postcards during the Understanding Drawing course in the previous semester. For examples of some of the works from those projects please visit Collaborative Postcarding Hong Kong. Carol has been making collaborative postcards for some years, in projects such as Macao-Elsewhere and the ongoing Elsewhere: Home series.

Together we settled on a series of rules, some of which were the same as in previous projects:
  • One person starts a card and then mails it to the next, who adds their work.
  • Cards are ultimately returned to their originator, who is the ultimate owner of that card.
  • Stamps are included on the front of the card.
  • The conversation is visual - we don't discuss works-in-progress.
  • Any medium may be used.
We also came up with some new rules:
  • The broad theme for the cards is details of everyday life and the project is title is Life Details.
  • Addresses will go on the back of the cards.
  • Each card may involve 2, 3 or 4 people. The starter writes on the back how many people will be involved. If it is a three-person card, the second person chooses who will finish the card, and that person returns it to the originator after it is complete. If it is a four person card, the third person, chooses the fourth, and that person finishes the card and returns it to the originator.
  • Each person will include their initials on the front of the card in such a way that the viewer can see the order in which the collaboration proceeded eg GI-YC-CA-WK.