Imagine what you would do if a stranger handed you this postcard: “”You are invited to anonymously contribute a secret to a group art project. Your secret can be a regret, fear, betrayal, desire, confession or childhood humiliation. Reveal anything as long as it is true and you have never shared it with anyone before … Be brief, legible and creative.””
In 2004, artist Frank Warren handed out 3,000 of these postcards and requested that they be mailed back to his address. When the secrets started coming in, he created a blog called PostSecret.com in order to share the confessions.
Now, six years later, PostSecret has evolved into a massive worldwide project. Warren currently receives more than 1,000 postcards per week, and has published many of the cards into four bestselling books.
PostSecret has also been transformed into an internationally traveling art exhibit. This fall, the display entitled “”PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death, and God,”” will be featured at the University of Arizona Museum of Art. These postcards feature secrets concerning religion, spirituality and our own mortality.
Iris Budinoff, an administrative assistant for the museum, explained that this is an exciting and unique theme for the exhibition.
“”Some are humorous, some are really sad, some are really deep and some are about a tragic event,”” Budinoff said. “”There’s a wide range. I think everyone can find some sort of common ground with these people, and see themselves in the secrets.””
The exhibit takes up two rooms in the museum. It spreads the postcards out neatly across the walls, so that it’s easy to see all of them — and they’re definitely worth reading. You’ll see everything from “”I want you to leave seminary and marry me”” to “”It’s hard to believe that God is in control when bad things keep happening.””
The museum is free for UA students, so it’s definitely worth a visit. And as Budinoff noted, PostSecret is all about “”confessing and revealing something in a public space, but still being anonymous.””
By reading the postcards on the walls, you can help strangers share their innermost secrets.
Do you have a secret?
The PostSecret exhibit inspired the University of Arizona Museum of Art to embark on a similar project of its own. This display, called “”Wildcat Confessions,”” allows UA students, staff and faculty to contribute their own anonymous postcards to a separate display. These cards will be rotated in and out so that everyone gets a chance to share their secret.
Participants can pick up postcards from the front desk of the museum and either mail them back or leave them in a drop box out front. “”Wildcat Confessions”” postcards do not have to fit the theme of life, death, and God — so contributors should feel free to write about anything.
The museum is accepting submissions from now until Dec. 6.
“”Wildcat Confessions,”” Budinoff said, “”offers you the chance to recognize one of your own secrets, and maybe feel less alone because you’ve shared it with other people.””
