Mail Myself to You: A Cinematic Journey Through the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection
Location
PANEL: Examining Grief, Art, and Sovereignty through Film Creation and Analysis
King 343
Document Type
Presentation
Start Date
4-26-2024 11:00 AM
End Date
4-26-2024 12:00 PM
Research Program
Digilab, The OCL Digital Collaborative, Mudd Library
Abstract
Oberlin College’s Clarence Ward Art Library is the home of the Harley Francis Terra Candella and Reid Wood State of Being mail art archives, a vast collection of art which had been mailed from artist to artist through the postal service. The mail art movement began in the early 1960’s, emerging out of the Fluxus art movement and Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School. Mail artists have since desired to forge an artistic community outside of museum and gallery systems, an “eternal network” built on the principles of art being free and collaborative. The over 20,000 works of mail art in the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection– spanning a period of 45 years and 70 countries– have been handled entirely by student workers since their original donation and purchase. Every year, new students are trained on the library’s cataloging practices and history of mail art, able to interact intimately with every postcard, artist stamp, and envelope in the collection. The spring of 2024 marks Reid Wood’s final donation of mail art to the Clarence Ward Art Library, an apt moment to reflect on the history of mail art in Oberlin and beyond. This animated documentary film will explore the legacy and future of this extensive archive, posing questions regarding the ways humans communicate through art and the practices of preserving the memory of art that resists convention.
Keywords:
Archives, Libraries, Fluxus, Documentary film
Recommended Citation
Pranger, Imogen, "Mail Myself to You: A Cinematic Journey Through the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection" (2024). Research Symposium. 29.
https://digitalcommons.oberlin.edu/researchsymp/2024/presentations/29
Major
Cinema Studies
Project Mentor(s)
Rian Brown-Orso, Cinema Studies
Barbara Prior, Clarence Ward Art Library, Oberlin College Libraries
2024
Mail Myself to You: A Cinematic Journey Through the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection
PANEL: Examining Grief, Art, and Sovereignty through Film Creation and Analysis
King 343
Oberlin College’s Clarence Ward Art Library is the home of the Harley Francis Terra Candella and Reid Wood State of Being mail art archives, a vast collection of art which had been mailed from artist to artist through the postal service. The mail art movement began in the early 1960’s, emerging out of the Fluxus art movement and Ray Johnson’s New York Correspondence School. Mail artists have since desired to forge an artistic community outside of museum and gallery systems, an “eternal network” built on the principles of art being free and collaborative. The over 20,000 works of mail art in the Oberlin College Mail Art Collection– spanning a period of 45 years and 70 countries– have been handled entirely by student workers since their original donation and purchase. Every year, new students are trained on the library’s cataloging practices and history of mail art, able to interact intimately with every postcard, artist stamp, and envelope in the collection. The spring of 2024 marks Reid Wood’s final donation of mail art to the Clarence Ward Art Library, an apt moment to reflect on the history of mail art in Oberlin and beyond. This animated documentary film will explore the legacy and future of this extensive archive, posing questions regarding the ways humans communicate through art and the practices of preserving the memory of art that resists convention.
