Chapter 2 - Escape - Review
Chapter 2 - Escape occurred over the three weeks from 30 May to 17 June, with the following weekly prompts:
Week 1: “Describe a small escape you witnessed.”
Week 2: “Describe somewhere, real or imagined, that you go to escape daily life.”
Week 3: “Describe your mode, style or place of escape when you were young.”
The prompts moved from a small escape witnessed, to somewhere people go to escape daily life, and finally to how they escaped when they were young. This changed the tone of the observations submitted.
Escape began as an event — danger avoided, mood lifted, an animal hidden or released — then opened into places, memories, fiction, landscape, breath and solitude. By week 3 it had become more personal: bedrooms, books, bikes, dens, trees, canals, piano, and the private space of the head.
What stood out was that escape was not always simple freedom. It could be play, retreat, survival, or a way of making space where there was none.
In practical terms, Chapter 2 received 50 observations from 33 people, from which 12 paintings were made. All were divided: one half posted to the selected correspondent, the other retained in The Archive of Selective Memory. Some have arrived; others (as at the end of June) are still in transit.
Each pairing has been photographed and stored with the observation details as a permanent archive of work
Across the two chapters, Correspondence has begun to change shape. A group of people is starting to gather around the project, returning to it, adding to it, and allowing their own small acts of witnessing to become part of its structure. So far, 121 observations have been received from 40 people. Chapter 2 was shorter than Chapter 1, but the same number of people responded.
The postal movement of the work has also become part of the meaning: selected paintings have now travelled to nine countries, with 40% of recipients in the UK, reflecting the UK weighting of my social network.
Two paintings from Chapter 1 (Türkiye and South Africa) have been treated as lost —the uncertainty of delivery is integral to the project. Some paintings from Chapter 2 are still in transit.
There is now an interactive Google Map of the postal destinations. Each marker can be opened to show the observation and the recipient’s initials and city.
The observations in Chapter 1, New Beginnings, showed that beginnings are not always clean or hopeful. They can be small, practical, difficult, fragile, or forced.
Chapter 2, Escape, observations became more interior: books, bikes, dens, trees, fiction, memory, solitude, and the private space of the head. Escape was not always freedom. It was often a way of making space. The posted halves continue to travel, while the retained halves continue to build the archive.
Thank you to D.L in Shoreham-by-Sea, the recipient of Chapter 1, Week 1, Day3, who framed her half and kindly sent me a photo. The painting was made in response to:
“my Garden as winter sheds its clothes so does spring bring forward blossom which Turn to apples every year it’s new again.”
Thank you to everyone who submitted an observation, followed Chapter 2, or received one of the paintings.
Thank you also to those who sent me photos, feedback, thoughts and ideas as the project has developed. Correspondence has always been a distributed work: a growing network of divided paintings, spread across different places, with one half out in the world and one half kept in the archive.
The project will keep adapting as we move forward, and Chapter 3 is now being planned for later in the year