Over the past few years of the Covid pandemic and its impacts, we’ve been caught in a relentless state of heartbreak, suffering, injustice and despair. It’s too much to carry, and yet we can’t let it consume us. We all need a way to cope so we’ve created a space where you can write about your pain and sorrow or your hopes and dreams for this world. We’ve designed an interactive experience where you can choose the ending of your words – to plant them, burn them, repair them, wash them away – to feel the lightness of letting go if only for a moment.
We invite you to make anonymous contributions and explore our exhibition space in a cargo trailer outside Mainframe Studios on Tuesday, June 21, 2022 at 5pm and outside The University Library Café on Thursday, June 23, 2022 at 5:30pm. These free events are part of ArtWeekDSM, and everyone is welcome to participate. Please join us in this unique and uplifting community experience and be a part of creating a portable monument of collective healing. Support for part of this project is provided by the Iowa Arts Council.
As part of ArtWeek DSM in June 2021, Des Moines poet Mallory Abreu and artist Julia Franklin designed an interactive outdoor experience at Greenwood Park's Rose Garden and West Des Moines Public Library. They invited the public to write about the things left unsaid—to others or themselves—simultaneously contributing to a living art piece that illustrates how everyone's shame, grief, and anxiety can be transformed into something beautiful.
Set beneath an enclosure of trees, the artists constructed a life-size cocoon that participants could enter. Contributors hung handwritten letters from the structure, helping to "crystalize" the cocoon as more notes were added. As the sun set, twinkling lights illuminated the letters and drawings. Everyone had a part in creating their own metamorphosis, entering the space and helping to build an enclosure of tranquility and restoration from our grief and shame. These intimate letters were collected and will be unveiled in June 2022 as a portable monument to our collective healing. (Photo credits: Jami Milne and Alan Jacobs)
This project is ongoing. We invite you to contribute!
Send handwritten letters to Julia Franklin, Mainframe Studios #321, 900 Keo Way, Des Moines, IA 50309. Or, fill out this anonymous submission form. *Note that your name and emails are not required - just your letter/message. Thank you for contributing to this powerful project.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT - WRITING PROMPTS
Not sure where to start? Mallory has shared some writing prompts and a Spotify music playlist to inspire your writing. Keep in mind this is to help you unburden yourself from the things left unsaid, from any grief, shame or regrets that you carry, or to voice the silent celebrations you’ve always wanted to share. By writing these down and sending us your letter, you are letting it go. Trust that we will tenderly care for your words and know that your letter doesn’t need to be good or perfect. It just needs to be - so that it can become part of a collective work created from everyone’s submissions.
MEET THE COLLABORATIVE TEAM
Mallory Abreu
Mallory Abreu is a poet, journalist and editor who currently works for Better Homes and Gardens. She has a passion for writing, architecture, art history and music, and they are all intimately intertwined in her creative practice.
Julia Franklin
Julia Franklin, a 2018 Iowa Artist Fellow, is a creator, connector, and collaborator who uses found objects to tell the stories about what we leave behind. She designs interactive art installations, gallery exhibitions, and community engagement projects to spark curiosity, start conversations, and bring people together.
HOW THE PROJECT CAME TO BE
It’s a beautiful story about asking someone to be your friend, the power of collaboration, and making art that invites others to participate so everyone can become better humans and let go of shame and guilt. Julia and Mallory had a few common friends and met briefly at an outdoor art reception during the pandemic. After following each other on social media, Julia realized her artwork and Mallory’s poetry touched on similar ideas and reached out to Mallory to ask about collaborating. They met for drinks in late April, talked for three hours, and knew they should dream up a project for ArtWeek in late June. They continued to meet and bounce ideas off each other and wandered spaces until the perfect tree canopies were found - ones that could encapsulate the transformative environment they wanted to create. They experimented with materials in suburbia and drew stares and whispers from neighbors, but they were undeterred. Julia and Mallory knew they could create something better and more powerful together than they could alone, and they realized this project was borne out of their own need to deal with shame and grief. 2020 and 2021 compounded those feelings for many of us and this is driving the project - that if we need this space, then others must need it as well. Stay tuned to see how the story continues to unfold!
PROCESS & EVENT PHOTOS FROM 2021
