Dear Me...

In 2016/17 Allsorts, Talk About Youth Project's LGBT group developed a powerful collaborative artwork called Dear Me… Dear Me... is a postcard campaign inviting members of the LGBT+ community to write messages to their younger selves, using a postcard designed and distributed by the Allsorts group, creating a unique and diverse collection of anonymous messages. Dear Me... uses visual, audiovisual and digital tools to capture and share reflections of the LGBT+ community through handwritten messages. The project is underpinned by collaborative processes: between artist, Shireen Shortt and participants; between our collective and other LGTB+ groups via personal dialogue and discussion; and through inviting members of the wider LGBT+ to contribute their messages. 

Over Dublin Pride weekend: 23-25 June 2017, the Science Gallery in Dublin hosted a pilot popup installation, sharing 100 postcards hung from coloured strings. We exhibited in the NYCI event Youth Work Changes Lives in the Mansion House on 27 September 2017 at at the launch of the National LBGTI+ Youth Strategy in Dogspatch Labs, CHQ on 9 December 2017.  

Visitors to our travelling exhibition become visibly absorbed in hundreds of distinct glimpses of lives lived, challenges encountered, and advice offered spoken with humour and emotion, revealing vulnerability, pain, resilience, triumph and optimism. The simple gesture of inviting members of the LGBT+ community to write a message to their younger selves is producing a powerful statement of solidarity and support to younger generations, while also offering people who do not identify as LGBT+ an opportunity to engage with touching and evocative messages.

Sample animated postcards: