PostSecret

"Sometimes when we think we are keeping a secret that secret is actually keeping us."
            – Frank Warren, the founder and curator of PostSecret

In November 2004, Frank Warren began his community art project by handing out postcards to strangers and leaving them in public places in the Washington, D.C. area. Each self-addressed card invited people to anonymously share a secret. The two requirements were: The secret had to be true and it had to be something that had never been told to another person.  Today, Warren has been mailed more than 500,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards illustrating the soulful secrets we never voice. This international phenomenon has spawned five The New York Times bestsellers; an award winning website that receives more than four million visitors every month; and an art exhibition that The Washington Post ranked in the top five of 2005.

This extraordinary exhibition of more than 400 postcards brings together the most powerful, poignant, and beautifully intimate secrets Warren has received. In many cases, the illustrations on these cards are just as compelling as the accompanying text. PostSecret, unflinchingly, exposes our rich interior lives, showing the best and worst of what dwells there.

The exhibition comes fully designed with a mounting system of 15 wall-hung and 5 free-standing units; enlarged postcards; a DVD of the media coverage (Good Morning America, CNN, and more) as well as a music video inspired by the project.  Museums have the opportunity to do a wide range of programming including a book talk and signing with the author, collection of anonymous secrets from visitors for a local reaction to the topic, and more.