Travellers Secret Box

Dear artist, friend or stranger that I have recently met and exchanged with,

I’m pleased to attach a link my The Travellers Secret Box weblog, where you can see all the cards that have been returned:

www.danielwallistsb.blogspot.com


Many thanks to those of you who have returned them, and for those of you have them in forefront of your minds and are eagerly preparing them to be retuned.

For those of you using them as bookmarks I would appreciate the return of the card when you complete the book, perhaps with a recommendation for my bookshelves.

Some people may have lost their postcards, or even forgotten about them, but if they do appear at the bottom of a bag, the pocket of a coat not worn for sometime or down the back of your sofa, please remember that they too can be shown to the world by simply being return to me (in whatever condition) and uploaded to the weblog.

I thank you again for your time,

Daniel

The project, in it's simplest terms, comprises the giving of an object (in this case a galvanised zinc box, 12.5 cm wide, 35cm long, 37.dcm deep and weighing 5 kilos)to an artist and asking them to consider it, interact with it on some level, and then make a response both visually and in words.

I was warned that the TSB's awkward and cumbersome physicality would present both a form of resistance and intervention, locating it in spaces where it's seemingly useless presence challenges the artist, and eventually the viewer, to reflect and consider it's existence and purpose. I was determined that it would be a useful companion to me over the month I had it, full of purpose and usefulness.

During this month I was to spend time in Leeds drawing with local school children at the Leeds City Art Gallery, to paint some murals dealing with the issues around being a refugee with 3 inner city London schools and show one of my paintings in a car park in Hackney on the weekend before it was demolished. I could see a lot of scope for using the TSB practically, if only as box to transport things in.

To quote the text given to me by Karen D'Amico, the artist coordinating the UK stage of the TSB project, the TSB is "perceived as excess baggage, a burden of sorts, taking on the role of an uncomfortable nuisance or inconvenience". I was immediately surprised by how much of a burden the TSB was. It was hard to carry without banging it on my knees with every step I, it wouldn't actually hold the things I wanted to put in it because the handle was in the way, making the opening to the box a bit smaller than my A4 sketchbooks, and it was just uncomfortable to hold.

On the way to Leeds I fell down some stairs (which I’m sure is because I was carrying the TSB) and fell on it, badly bruising my left leg. I hardly took it anywhere with me for the rest of the week.

Since returning from Leeds with the TSB I’ve been unsure of what to do with it. I’ve photographed it a lot, in all the places I took it too. I’ve also drawn it a few times, and scanned it too. But my final decision has been to give some of my drawings of the TSB to other people and see what they make of it. I have asked them to do the same with these drawings (in postcard form) as I was asked to do with the TSB; to take them away, reflect on them, live with them, interact with them and then return them to me.

Each returned postcard will be scanned and uploaded to this weblog. To rephrase Karen D’Amico - Just as with the TSB each response is unique, each interpretation becomes a decidable gesture given back to the viewer, and the drawings become mediating objects, a from of gesture to the participant, whose work in turn presents it’s own form of presence, defining and presenting a particular narrative or identity for the viewer.