júlia mazzoni

In January 2024, a former undergraduate colleague/classmate, Arthur Camarão, contacted me on Instagram to invite me for a mail art project that he was involved with, as part of his artistic residency. His project was to exchange mail art artworks with people around the world, surrounding the idea of mail art as a democratic art practice, with freedom to create whatever without the worries of commercialization.

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I had a shallow previous knowledge of mail art, but Arthur was very generous to share a lot of resources with me, so I could learn more about it. The aspects of the probable ephemerality (since the mail can get lost), of an exchange between artists (an intimate exchange, since only the two of us know what's inside the mail), were very inspiring. During this period of exchange of information, we were dialoguing online, through email.

 

It made me reflect on questions that permeate my practice: to look at things that seem small and not very noticeable - like a correspondence, or a connection between people that is made in this private context. These things that are sometimes almost imperceptible (and/or even immaterial) are the most precious in the world, for me.

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Arthur proposed me to create an artwork to send him while I waited for his work to arrive. The idea was for each one of us to create a new work responding to the one we would receive. It was my first time creating a piece of mail art, so I decided to send him something in a letter-style, in February. It was very exciting for both of us, because I would receive something from Brazil, and he would receive something from the United Kingdom. It would be an exchange of perspectives, especially with my new point of view being in the intersection between both places.

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Unfortunately, until this day, I still haven't received Arthur's correspondence - neither the work he originally sent, nor the response to my work. Perhaps, both got lost in the space between.