B.C. Spirit Festivals will kick off around the province this month celebrating the first anniversary of the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, and locally that will come in the form of the Mail Art Olympix.
The McMillan Arts Centre in Parksville was given a $16,000 grant from the province to put on the event. Other art centres around the province were also given funding to hold commemorative festivals.
The Mail Art Olympix debuted in Courtenay in 2009 and has travelled around the province, including a show in Vancouver during the Olympics. The grant will allow for an expanded catalogue in Parksville showing the 860 pieces of artwork from the 340 artists located in 41 countries, and a website including a scanned copy of each piece.
The Mail Art Network has been flourishing around the world since the 1960s, said curator and organizer of the exhibition Ed Varney, and continues to thrive today. The network involves people from all over the world exchanging art work through the postal system. It began as an early form of social networking, a fun way to meet other artists, but for others it was much more serious.
“One of the attractions to mail art in the past was people who lived in countries under oppressive regimes. This is one of the only ways for artists to get an audience outside of their own country.”
Varney was one of the first Canadians to get involved with the mail art network in the ‘70s. He said he’s remained an active member over the years because it’s an interesting way to meet artists, but his favourite part involves the element of surprise.
“The most exciting part frankly is opening the envelopes,” he said. “It’s just totally exciting.”
He said by looking at an artist’s work you can tell a lot about them and you end up feeling like you have a bunch of friends all over the world. Another great part about it is actually meeting these artists face-to-face, he said. After his call out for mail art in 2009 a man arrived in his driveway one day claiming to be “the mail man.”
“It turned out he was from Switzerland and he was personally delivering mail for the Mail Art Olympix,” he said.
Varney asked for three different categories of work from the artists from which he has created three “events” for the exhibition in Parksville. These include self portraits, artists stamps and manifestos. And although they are called events, it isn’t a competition and there won’t be any prizes or medals at this Olympix.
“It’s up to the public to determine which ones they like the best,” Varney said.
None of the artwork will be for sale and none of it will be returned to the artists. It’s become a bit of a barter system, Varney said, where artists give up their work and in return receive original work from others, and in this case a printed catalogue.
The Mail Art Olympix runs from Feb.1 to Feb. 26 at the McMillan Art Centre in Parksville (formerly the Oceanside Community Arts Council) located at 133 McMillan St. There will be an official opening on Feb. 3 from 7 to 9 p.m. The event is free.
For details, visit www.artolympix.com.