Trans=Send // Transmit )))

Trans=Send was the mail art element of Trans=Send // Transmit, a project conceived in 2007 to connect artists in Leeds and Sunderland via the historical and architectural connection of two Georgian churches: Holy Trinity, Sunderland and Holy Trinity, Leeds, both designed by the York architect William Etty (1675-1734) (NOT the painter!!) and both increasingly used as arts venues. Trans=Send was an experimental project and exhibition space which examined the changing dynamic of mail art amidst a context of electronic social networking and a shifted perspective on Pop and Fluxus movements. The Mail Art was exhibited both inside the church at Leeds and in display cases mounted on the temporary hoardings surrounding the church during the demolition and rebuilding of the Trinity Quarter Shopping Centre. Transmit ))) was proposed as a further experimentation using the model of mail art, of send, change / adapt and return, on audio pieces. This would have been exchanged via radio. A program was developed to do this, but funding structures with the organisations involved meant that funding through usual channels (ACE) were not permissible. The whole was conceived of for the final project in an M.A. in Curating at Sunderland University, but involved collaboration with Helen Boutle and Bruce Davies, then curators at Holy Trinity Church Leeds, Marcia Ley, Head of Printing at Sunderland University (and her foundation year students) as well as many artists and experts in Newcastle, particularly at Culture Lab, Newcastle University.