What if one day you awoke to find a letter like this in your mailbox?

Well this is what happened to Anne and Alfred plus 619 other households in Polish Hill, Pittsburgh, USA in November 2009 and before them 467 households in the small Irish village of Cushendall in Co. Antrim back in April 2009. The idea is Art. The artists are Lenka Clayton and Micheal Crowe who intend to write and post these Mysterious Letters to everyone in the world!

In April 2009, they started their project by sending a personal, handwritten letter to each of the 467 households in the small Irish village of Cushendall in the hope that these unsolicited letters would prompt neighbourly discussion, spreading across the town, promoting community curiosity. The pair took up residence in a Tower in the centre of Cushendall and set about mapping out the town and drafting handwritten, personal letters and notes in anticipation of the mass mailing. As they were living there, the letters contained a personal and always sunny element like complimenting people on their houses and gardens (“your lovely window reminds me of Da Vinci’s Sketch of Man a bit”), offering assurances that life, if not yet “going swimmingly”, “will pick up soon, I’m sure!”, giving effusive thanks to local police for the job they do, and even sending one couple an architectural recommendation for their new kitchen extension-in-progress. Every one signed in the same cheery way. And every one, in its own way, completely and beautifully bizarre. Vintage postcards from across the world and across the centuries; notepaper in all the colours of the rainbow; tiny, enclosed gifts of rubber bands and luggage tags and even a lock of hair (that went to a local hairdresser); anecdotes and memories and observations and questions unashamedly childish in their frankness and wonder. They all arrived on the same day, all written in the same two hands, and they set the village of Cushendall talking. What were these letters? Who were these people, “Lenka” and “Michael”? What did this mean? Were these threats? The work of unhinged minds? Belated April Fool’s jokes?

It hadn’t occurred to them that the mailings might frighten or confuse some of the recipicients especially as it may have given them the unsettling feeling of being watched by strangers. As well as negative opinions, it also had the effect of connecting people in a small village. Read more on this story in an excellent article which appeared in the Irish Times entitled ‘Mysterious art of mailing the world’.

In November 2009, they sent another bundle of letters, this time 620, to each home in Polish Hill, Pittsburgh, USA. The art work consists solely of the discussion between the recipients about what on Earth these letters are, who sent them and why, etc. The letters can be viewed at their Mysterious Letters blog. And having secured additional funding, they plan to continue their endeavour to mail the world – wonder what town is next?