72 postcards - 8" x 5.25" 2003

Recently I arranged that seventy-two colleagues and friends return these tapestry woven postcards to me, by mail, from around the world.

I had adapted an airline map (JAL) that was centered on Tokyo to cover the entire world with the North Pole at its center.  This view of the world is as distorted as any flattened world map must be.

It is also symbolic of the inevitable reality that each of us carries on our own world map.  Ours is an individual map laden with conditioned points of view, with biases that grow out of our own limitations.  It goes beyond the accident of geography.  Our maps encompass our environmental, social, national and personal experience.

As a more general comment, I have mailed some 100 tapestry postcards and packages all around the world for more than 30 years.  Perhaps surprisingly, not one has failed to reach its intended destination.

Archie Brennan