This week, a mysterious surprise greeted certain Bowdoin students as they opened their Student Union mailboxes. Black and white postcards, with no explanation as to why they were there, had been addressed to the recipients by people they did not know.
Who was behind it? Visiting Art Professor Meggan Gould, who had assigned members of her Photography I class the task of photographing their fall break destinations in order to transform their photos into postcards upon their return to campus.
After developing their pictures on Ilford postcard photo paper, students spent this week writing and addressing 20 postcards each.
The catch? They had to send at least half of their cards to people they did not know.
Gould created the project after considering how much time photographers spend "taking" from other people.
"We do all of these projects that require us to take images of people, but we rarely give anything back. So I wanted to give back," Gould said. She introduced the project last semester and decided to make it part of her curriculum for this semester as well "because it was so much fun."
In addition, Gould sought to take students' art out of the classroom and diffuse it into Bowdoin and Brunswick.
"Part of the idea was to get the work outside of the context of this class and into the community," she said.
Raya Gabry '10, who took Gould's class last semester, appreciated the community outreach aspect of the project.
"It was a community service project more than it was an assignment," she said.
In the spring, Gould had students take pictures of the Brunswick area for their postcards.
"She wanted us to look at Brunswick in a different way," Gabry said. "It was really great because I got to know the town better just by walking around for a few hours."
Aside from the community aspect of the project, Gould also probed students with questions about the artistic elements of the postcard as a medium.
"We discussed what postcards are," she said. "And then I asked them not to do that. Postcard images are often detached, removed, and predictable. I wanted students to have a much more engaged reaction to the places they were traveling or places in the community."
Bryant Dossman '11, a current student in Gould's class, had to rethink his process of taking pictures when he realized they would be used as postcard images.
"Everyone thinks of photographs as artsy, not as postcards," he said. "It made me think about how I take pictures differently. I had to take them with a specific person or purpose in mind."
Gould also asked students to consider the aspect of using the postal service as part of the art process.
"People use the mail system as an integral part of a piece of art. Putting these images in the mail changes the context of the art," she said.
She held up a photograph of a telephone as an example.
"You might see this on a gallery wall, but sending it as a postcard changes the context radically, especially when it arrives in your mailbox from someone you don't know," she said.
Mark Thorne '09 altered the context of his photographs even further by writing short stories on the back of every postcard he sent.
"I thought it would be a fun way to manipulate the context by giving speech to people who can't have speech because they're in photos," he said. "The medium of photography is inherently unspeechful."
Gould required that her students put their e-mail addresses on their postcards, but allowed them to choose their recipients and the message their cards would bear.
"I sent one to Randy Nichols, another one to a woman who works in Thorne, and one to the Little Dog Coffee Shop downtown," Gabry said.
Using the Bowdoin directory, this year's class randomly picked a first year to whom everyone sent a postcard.
In addition, students sent cards to family members, faculty, friends, and Brunswick businesses.
The messages on the back of the cards varied from student to student. Dossman chose to write one-line interpretations of his photos. For example, on the back of a picture of a blurry street, he wrote "The road looks hazy."
"When you just read a short sentence you can interpret it in so many ways," he said. "Not having to explain yourself is key."
Coco Sprague '11 took a different approach by writing long messages on her postcards, even to people she did not know.
"That's what postcards should be," she said. "You get a fun message and it's exciting."