EMPATHIC POST-ITS

This is just one piece in a series of installations I created in an attempt to draw out the vulnerabilities of my fellow community members in an attempt to create more empathic connections between us. In each installation I experimented with the social dynamics of space, media, and prompts to understand when and where people felt most comfortable sharing their vulnerabilities.

This particular piece was installed in the main lobby at MassArt's tower building. The large segmented windows took a large public space and divided it into individual niches for users to step into and feel comfortable reading and submitting responses. Additionally, the large scale of the piece, allowed for multiple users to interact with it simultaneously, without feeling like they were being intruded upon by others.

Below is a time-lapse video of my process of installing my empathic post-its in the lobby at MassArt. At the beginning of the video you will see me copying entries from an online survey I conducted in order to prime the installation wall - it's always better to have to some existing entries at the beginning in order to combat fear of the blank page. In the second half of the video, you will see my process of photographing the post-its and hanging them in the space. The music selection is "Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou) by Sufjan Stevens for The Roots.