Dead letters

Dead letters
2009 admin

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Lettere morte (Dead letters)

 

It’s unopened personal letters received from 25th April to 10th September 2009. The title refers to a post office room where letters whose addressee is unknown are stored for some time, before they are sent to the pulping mill. Imagine a love letter with an engagement ring that will never get to one’s beloved. The ring as a testimony of one’s love. That letter that will never arrive. The two lives that will never converge…

This work was inspired by Melville’s well known character, Bartleby the Scrivener, with his catchphrase ‘I would prefer not to’. Before working for the lawyer, to whom one day he begins to answer ‘I would prefer not to’, Bartleby worked in the Dead Letters office. In seeking an explanation for his employee’s sudden resistance to his requests, the lawyer presumes that  he must have been traumatized by his previous employment in the dead letters office.

It’s unopened personal letters received from 25th April to 10th September 2009. The title refers to a post office room where letters whose addressee is unknown are stored for some time, before they are sent to the pulping mill. Imagine a love letter with an engagement ring that will never get to one’s beloved. The ring as a testimony of one’s love. That letter that will never arrive. The two lives that will never converge.[…]