03 Oct “Real Beauty” letters hidden on Harley Street, London
This project was done by a young person who went to Ghana with Platform2 as a volunteer. She spoke to me about how many of the girls born in the village (she stayed for 10 weeks) thought they were not beautiful because they were not blonde with blue eyes. She found this very upsetting especially because that volunteer was very dark skinned herself. I led a workshop on creative writing for Platform2 volunteers to help them express their experience in a developing country through writing such as blogs, letters, zines, articles and craftivism. I spoke about craftivism and some projects the Craftivist Collective have done including the Valentines Day Hidden Letters project. She decided she wanted to write a letter about the issue of beauty that she experienced in Ghana. We printed off 50 of her hand written letters in pink, sprinkled in silver hearts inside, wrote on the pink envelopes “Hey beautiful…” and planted them down Harley Street, London where all the plastic surgeons offices are. We hope that the letter about beauty makes people think about inner beauty and where outside beauty should be a priority in peoples lives as well as the influence the west has on the developing world and their self-worth.
We got a few strange looks when planting the letters and a few people asking what we were doing. The volunteer then told them of her experience and views which she really enjoyed. It was lovely that people stopped to listen to her story and her passion on this issue. However we did get one doctor come out of his office and was a little bit aggressive and worried. He took a letter from us and ran back into his office. I hope he found time to read it and think about this issue. Here is where we planted them.
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