Brevard Art Museum hosts the PostSecret Exhibition

Sunday, 30 March 2008 00:31

MELBOURNE, FL - In November 2004, Frank Warren handed out 3,000 postcards to strangers. He invited people to write down a secret anonymously and mail it to him. Each secret had to be true and something that had never been shared with another person.  These initial secrets were exhibited in Washington, D.C., later that year. After the first exhibition closed, word of the project spread.  People began crafting their own homemade postcards and the artful secrets began arriving from every continent.  
 
Today, Warren has received more than 150,000 postcards and they continue to come at a rate of about 1,000 per week. Every Sunday, Warren posts secrets on his award-winning website (www.PostSecret.com), which has been viewed more than 100 million times.   This international phenomenon has spawned three New York Times bestselling books with a fourth, A Lifetime of Secrets, published in October 2007.  One of HarperCollins most sought after speakers, Warren has spoken at dozens of college campuses and appeared on international media including Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, BBC, CBC and NPR.  
 
The PostSecret exhibition features more than 400 postcards that bring together the most powerful, poignant, and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received. Why is PostSecret so appealing? It is because Warren has tapped into the universal stuff of being human, the collective, often unconscious level of existence that defies age, culture, gender, and economics. Addictively compelling, the cards reveal our deepest fears, desires, regrets, and obsessions. The exhibition brilliantly reveals that human emotion can be unique and universal at the same time. The secrets are both provocative and profound, and the cards themselves are works of art. Carefully and creatively constructed by hand, the postcards are made from cardboard, old photographs, wedding invitations, and other personal items artfully decorated and have traveled to Warren from all over the world.
 
“I have been asked many times why I started this,” said Warren. “It still feels to me as though this project found me. All I try to do is make the right decisions every day to protect the integrity of the project – and learn to trust the journey.”
 
The Brevard Art Museum will be the only venue in the Southeast to display PostSecret during the exhibition’s tour. Additional events at the Brevard Art Museum will include a local installation of anonymous secrets, projects with schools and collaborative programming with Brevard County Libraries.  The Museum also invites members of the public to craft their own unique postcards.
 
The PostSecret exhibition tour was organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, DC, in cooperation with Frank Warren.
   
About the Museum

The Brevard Art Museum is a non-profit organization supported in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs; the Florida Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts; Brevard County through the Brevard Cultural Alliance; and by members of the Brevard Art Museum - 1463 Highland Avenue in the Eau Gallie District of Melbourne - (321) 242-0737 - Visit : www.artandscience.org/