Snail mail from Joburg

WORDS Lisa Johnston

Finding herself at a loss for appropriate images to send to overseas friends, a postcard aficionado has taken matters into her own hands and curated Postcard Revival, an edition of Joburg-relevant postcards.

It was a love for postcards – the feel of something tactile, an inspiring image of a distant place and words carefully thought out to fill a limited space – that sent Jaqueline Landey on a quest to find images that would represent her home city.

“I’m a postcard sender,” says Jaqueline, founder and funder of an inspiring new project called the Postcard Revival. “But when I came back to Joburg [from Tokyo] I was at a loss for postcards. There was nothing that represented the city. I’d look at the pictures of the Big Five and think ‘but this isn’t Joburg’.”

Her interest in travel, the character of a city, art history and words got her wondering what it was about Johannesburg that prevented it from having a recognisable iconography.

“I kept thinking what is it about Joburg that we don’t want to show off?” she says.  “The city is associated with crime, with ugliness. But people from Joburg, love Joburg. Those associtions aren’t true for the people who live here, yet that’s how we represent ourselves.”

In her search for visual representation she went directly to the people who were looking at the city critically and siphoning off its energy … its artists, photographers, illustrators and designers. She approached them with the question: “If you had to send one postcard of Johannesburg, what image would you choose?”

The response was as exciting and varied as the city itself, from a painting of the inner city that captures its beauty and grittiness to stylised graffiti-type renderings and floral patterns celebrating Joburg’s status as a forested city.

“It got people thinking how are they going to represent the city they live in, the feeling they have for it. I didn’t want to over curate it, I really left it up to the artists to see what they would come up with,” says Jaqueline. “It’s appropriate that the disparity of the city has been represented. Our multifarious culture really comes across in the variety of styles and images.”

The end product is a set of 30 beautifully printed postcards, bound and packaged in a box that makes one want to slow down, remove the lid carefully and take thought in selecting exactly the right postcard for the right recipient, with exactly the right inscription. “I always say the postcard is the original Tweet, which includes words and a visual marker of where you are at a particular time in your life. There is so much history in such a small piece of paper,” says Jaqueline, who adds, “Instant [electronic] access to communication has cheapened it, it’s so quick you don’t have to think about what you are saying.”

Aside from evoking a sense of romanticism and nostalgia of postcard sending, Jaqueline sees the collection as kind of mobile art gallery, with an image passed from hand to hand (and possibly appreciated) on its journey from sender to recipient.

“I see it as a democratic way of sharing art, it’s taking art from behind gallery walls and making it accessible to everyone. The fact that it’s an artwork you can send adds a gift aspect to it.”

Jaqueline’s attention to detail went right down to her choice of venue for the one-off launch exhibition, which was held on 16 May 2013. The event, which showcased and sold the original works and postcard collection, was held on the top floor of the Barbican Building, Rissik Street, Johannesburg, overlooking the city’s original post office.

Unfortunately still awaiting renovation, the Rissik Street Post Office is Johannesburg’s oldest public building, having been built in 1897. It was also the city’s tallest building at one stage and served as a postal services building until 1996. It’s seen two fires and is now a national monument that will hopefully be restored to its former glory soon. Just as, we hope, Jaqueline’s efforts will see the restoration of the age-old art of postcard sending.

“I didn’t have a postcard to send a year ago,” she says. “Now suddenly I have so many to send!” 

Postcards are R300 for the collection or R30 each. Editions will be on sale at the next Collective on 2 June 2013 at The Rooftop, 3 Desmond Street, Kramerville. Read our interview with Collective founder, Catherine Corry here.

Visit www.postcardrevival.com for more information about the project and its artists.