post your secrets

I went to the Post a Secret exhibit today in Georgetown. Here is the actual Blog POSTASECRET

It was very provocative. The project itself is very insightful. People send post cards with thier secrets to a perfect stranger who posts them on his website for the world to see and judge. But I don't find myself judging at all. I find myself trying to reason. Keeping secrets is a very human thing, and I think by exaiming these confessions we have an instant insight into today's societal norms and values. We don't have to wait for a historian to look back and put into context what we valued and what we looked down upon at this exact point in time.

I have always been fascinated by the website, but there is something about seeing the postcards upclose, to see the handwriting and then sharing a common experiance with the other voyours at the gallery that makes the whole experiance very intense. There is sense of safety when you are able to read something from a book or watch a movie by yourself, or even view a website on your own, but when you do it as an audience, the effect is stronger. It reverbarates longer because it's instant confirmation of your own initial reaction. You experiance this confirmation by observing others body language and facial expressions. I really enjoyed seeing how other people reacted to the things I saw. You become curious at which postcards they direct the attention of the person their with to. It's natural to want to go over and see what they are pointing at, explaining or questioning. It was interesting to see what made people smile, laugh, and sadden.

Besides the postcards, the space is sparse. Lots of light, white walls and very open. The post cards are the main and only event. There is a small room with a movie playing. There is melodic rock playing with interim periods where The All American Reject's song my didrty little secret plays. I liked how the exhibit was very organic. There were a few of the interesting postcards blown up to huge wall sized canvases, but the majoraty of them were just put in batches along the walls for people to stroll along and observe. There was no order to it, but as you puruse along, the exhibit itself develops into a beginning, middle and end for you. Each person's experiance will be differant. Some people may be drawn to certain colors or postcards more then others. I myself spent a good hour just sitting down and going through the books and reading about how the project started and how it has continued to develop.

Going by myself allowed me to linger longer. Sometimes I'm afraid my fascination with someone's secret is revealing my own secrets, the ones I may even keep from even myself. One of the secrets was a post card that stated, "Sometimes I just want to be alone, but I don't want to be lonely." That definetly hit a spot. There were a few funny ones. And there were some very shocking secrets. A lot of the secrets were about relationships with significant others, very Camu's The Stranger in ways.

Not so surprisingly, a lot of the secrets were sexual. After watching Kinsey (great movie) and writing papers on censorship in British media, I found out we live in a very sexually repressed society, but i'm sure I didn't have to tell you that because we all tend to have our sexual hang ups and insecurities.

I feel that sometimes this blog is a big POST A SECRET project for myself. I read a qoute somewhere from some dude that said, writing is a process of self discovery. I guess it is true for me. And if this is a huge post-a-secret project for me, I wouldn't have it any other way then to just have it public. Then I am free from my secrets. It's no longer a burden.

Maybe one day I'll post up my sexual hang ups and desires.

Anyway, I recommend checking out the exhibit and definetly the website.