Wellesley College's Davis Museum and Cultural Center, February 24 - June 14, 2000

Judith Hoos Fox:

The Letter-Writing Project consists of three beautifully crafted booths, made of glass and wood, and with a writing surface inside each. Stationery is at each writing surface. One is configured for standing while you write your letter, one for sitting, and one for crouching down. The visitor is invited to write a letter that they've been meaning to write, but haven't for some reason or another. And they're invited to think about insight, forgiveness and gratitude, although they're free to write whatever they want. The letter can be sealed and addressed, in which case we in the museum will mail these letters on a weekly basis. If the writer wishes to send this letter to someone who is deceased or not born or doesn't wish to address the letter, it stays in the booth, and we collect them for the artist. These letters might be sealed or unsealed. And if it's unsealed, people are welcome to read the letters.

It really seems that there is a need for this kind of work in our society, at a time when communication is everywhere, and yet it's perhaps losing its meaning. E-mail can be sent instantaneously, but it's not a contemplative kind of experience; it's not a sensual kind of experience. The fact that we have so many people coming in and writing letters of really deeply personal nature in this public setting really indicates that there's a need for this kind of place in our society which doesn't exist, that people need a place to think, a quite place, an opportunity to say things that they haven't said.

The letters, some of these letters are heart-wrenching. I really can't read them, even the ones that are open. They're left open for people to read, but I find that it's an invasion. I feel uncomfortable reading these letters, having read a few of them. They're too powerful. And Mingwei, the artist, collects, keeps all the letters. He has thousands of them from when the piece has been shown in other places. And he was reading a batch of them each night, and just found that he couldn't do that any longer. It was really -- he's not a trained psychologist. It was just too much of an emotional experience, and he just couldn't.

Lee Mingwei:

My grandmother, she continued to be a doctor until she was about 85 and she passed away in that time. She was a pioneer of her time. She did not have bound feet, she studied Chinese and also Japanese and went to Japan to study medicine. But all their texts were in German and Latin. So she actually spoke a very archaic textbook German. So it's very fun to see this 85 years old Chinese woman speak archaic German.

She reminds me that I have to, in a way, be ahead of my thinking, my own thinking and my own doing. And to be able to not be afraid to be different. Because when she was studying in Japan, her home town didn't like the idea at all, because they thought women should be staying home and doing embroidery. She was not only studying, but she was all the way in Japan, by herself.

The Letter Writing Project was for her when she passed away. I had a lot of things to say to her, but it was too late. So I started writing letters to her.

- Excerpted from interview transcripts with Judith Hoos Fox, Curator, Davis Museum and artist Lee Mingwei.

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