Project 1: Archive
“The Letter That Will Never Come”
It is natural that people come and go in one’s life. Some people stay for some time, while others leave very quickly causing lingering feelings. That certain someone’s abrupt absence might cause one to yearn for more than what was left and that desire might be in any form, but in many cases, it is in the form of words. Words that they felt like they needed to hear, words that they wanted to hear, or words that they knew the other person wished to say. In my case, I had hoped to receive those words in the form of a letter. Much time has passed since that person left and I no longer wish to receive a letter from them, but I think the concept of “writing” out the words that I wanted to read was a sort of self-closure since the person who left was not coming back to give it to me. And for others, it is just one way of dealing with loss and coming to terms that many things are left open-ended and unsaid.
In order to find the words, I went into the Smithsonian Archive and carefully skimmed through a numerous amount of letters and correspondence from the 1800s to 1900s, cutting out only the words I wished to receive. But keeping in mind that it is not solely me who might have a letter that will never come, I made sure to keep the content vague, but deep enough so that anyone reading it may also have a personal connection with it.