The Bunny Project: A community mail art collaboration funded by a grant from the City of San Leandro and the Arts, Culture and Library Commission.
Why the BUNNY project?
Rabbits are having a moment.
They're cute, they're prolific, and they get around, just like mail art!
Mail art has a long and storied history of democratizing art-making, providing an avenue for anyone to participate. Unlike the commercial and non-profit art markets, mail art shows require no entry fee and no curator or jury—everyone’s work is exhibited.
I created hundreds of postcard-size "starter" collages* and distributed them to venues where people gather in San Leandro. Community members discovered them, added to them, and mailed nearly 70 of them back to me. The USPS was a collaborator, too, adding their own marks as they processed the collage postcards through the system and into my PO Box. Good job, USPS!
These little 4" x 6" gems of collaborative creativity are on view here. The project concluded with a month-long exhibition on the gallery wall at the main library in San Leandro in November, 2024.
Since then, I've followed my own instructions and added to a dozen or more starter collages that weren't picked up by community members. They're included here with the other returnees, annotated with my initials, e.g., "Collage #133 NDB".
* All 500 unique starter collages were numbered, hence the numbers associated with those that were returned.