Correspondence Art 1980s: India/Hiroshima
Ray Johnson conceived “Correspondence Art” while a student at Black Mountain College in the 1940s. Later known as “mail art,” “postal art” that grew into the New York Correspondence School it co-developed with the Fluxus Movement of the 1960s building on the concept of communication-as-art-form.
In 1985, at the height of the Cold War and in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the first Atomic-Bombing of civilian populations triggering the Nuclear Age, students at Hiroshima International School founded their 1000 Crane Peace Club which was shared throughout the world in thirty-two languages through the UNESCO Courier.
The GIPS School in southern India, in the state of Kerala, wrote the International School wishing to join the project, but had no origami paper to fold a 1000 paper cranes for peace. The International School sent their new friends in Kerala 2000 sheets of origami paper. Three months later a burlap bag arrived at the International School with a 1000 paper cranes with a letter from the head teacher. Several hundred of the cranes had written messages of peace; but the vast majority had “messages” of the students’ schoolwork: mathematics problems and language arts exercises. The teacher wrote that the children’s work was usually completed on shared pieces of “slate.” This was the first “sheet paper,” they had ever used.
The International School then sent the GIPS School several boxes of paper, colored pencils and crayons that became the basis for exchanging letters, drawings and “correspondence art” over several years.