Messenger Pigeon / Homing Pigeon

This was a public engagement project I led during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games exploring the social theory on how reciprocal gift giving can strengthen bonds between communities. 

I had the privilege of being Lead Artist for The Big Draw at Festival 2014 during The Glasgow Commonwealth Games, where I devised and facilitated free public engagement projects for the public every day for two weeks. Each of the projects changed daily and were to tie in with themes of the Commonwealth, Glasgow and the Games' theme of HOME. We saw close to 20,000 people over the course of the two weeks, each of whom took part in an activity. 

For this project, I asked people to create a 'messenger pigeon' on the front of a postcard using a broad range of materials. They were then asked to write a positive message or aspiration on the back, and leave their artwork behind in order to gift it to a stranger. People addressed an envelope to themselves so that, following the Commonwealth Games, each participant could be sent a random MESSENGER PIGEON artwork as a gift. Everyone who took part received an original artwork and message from a stranger as a memento of the event.

Over 1200 participants from all over the world took part in this project.