Making art to connect strangers šØ Ivan Cash, Director of āA Social Distanceā
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Episode at a glance:
GUEST: Ivan Cash
COMMUNITY: Snail Mail My Email,The Passenger Project,Selfless Portraits,and āA Social Distanceā
HOSTS: Bailey Richardson & Maggie Zhang
āI think that there's just some stubborn part of me that wants benevolence towards strangers to be more accepted and widespread. That's my underlying mission.ā - Ivan Cash
Show Notes
Ivan Cash is an interactive artist and filmmaker whose work celebrates and inspires connections among strangers. He has received high accolades for his work (Forbes 30 Under 30, Cannes Lions Shortlist, exhibitions in V&A Museum and The Brooklyn Museum). But thatās not why we interviewed him on the podcast. We brought him on the podcast to go deep on the techniques he uses to connect strangers through art.
Ivan is one of the creatives we admire most who use storytelling and art to actually bring people together, connecting strangers through small, benevolent collaborations that add up to much more. His first community art project, "Snail Mail My Email," invited volunteers to transform strangersā emails into handwritten letters, free of charge. In the six years it ran, 2,000 volunteers sent 29,249 letters to 80 countries. From there, he launched The Passenger Project, connecting strangers sharing the same plane, and Selfless Portraits, which gave strangers permission to draw each othersā Facebook profile pictures.
Highlights from Snail Mail My Email.
Photo of Teresa from Leiria, Portugal, as part of Selfless Portraits
An example from The Passenger Project.
Recently, Ivan released āA Social Distance,ā a film that features a montage of people living in countries most impacted by COVID-19 and was viewed by people around the world.
We talked with Ivan about turning an idea into a project, setting constraints to foster group creativity, and engaging people who care as collaborators
While youāre listening, keep an ear out for Ivanās four part guide to creating collaborative projects:
(1) Be specific with your constraints. ā£
More constraints leads to more creativity. āThe more I tell people exactly what Iād like them to do,ā Ivan shares, the more he āgives them a sense of, āthis the sandbox to play in.āā£ Clear instructions give participants the starting point from which they can improvise.
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To kickstart āA Social Distanceā film project, Ivan and his team created a thoughtful, thorough brief.ā£ā£ They asked that participants to wear black, to film in a clean space, do longer takes than they think weāre necessary so thereās film at the beginning and the end. ā£ā£
āA Social Distanceā film, a beautiful testament to humanity in trying times.
ā£And they asked for very specific scenes. Introducing yourself to the camera. A portrait with and without a mask. A shot of washing your hands, opening and closing your fridge, or scenes outside your window.ā£ā£
And they asked for specific participants, seeking out people from the 20 countries that had been most affected by COVID-19 at the time of the film. That included perspectives from a 93-year old Malayan grandmother to a 19-year old Slovenian teen.ā£ā£
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The result was a film that managed to bring many voices together cohesively.ā£
(2) Form a team of people who care.
āIāve learned since the Snail Mail My Email days. I try to formulate a team ideally before the project begins as opposed to after it,ā Ivan shared. In projects since, he told us that āhaving more people on board, more collaborators, allowed us to reach a broader audience and network.ā
After the Snail Mail My Email project went viral, Ivan quickly realized he needed help. He couldnāt complete the project alone.
A guide to Snail Mail My Email.
In the six years Snail Mail My Email ran, 29,249 letters were sent to 80 countries. To accomplish such an ambitious feat, Ivan pinpointed early hand raisersāsuperfans of the projectāwho helped handwrite the letters to strangers and build processes around the project. A total of 2,000 volunteers came on to transcribe letters.
(3) Hedge your bets by overdoing the outreach.
āDonāt be scared to do a lot of outreach to get participants,ā Ivan told us. āTake that as a very serious step in the process.ā
For Ivan and and the team behind āA Social Distanceā that included all of them sharing it on personal social media and email newsletters simply saying, āHey, weāre doing this project. Weād love for you to participate and being really even specific about who we wanted to participate.ā
Scenes from āA Social Distanceā ā dancing in the living room around the world.
The team decided on a list of 20 countries that were most impacted by COVID-19, and believed it was crucial to find participants representing each of those places. To get to 20 people, Ivan and his team tried to track down āa lot more than that,ā so they had redundancy in their footage and alternates if someone wasnāt able to film. He advises to ābe realistic about what the final output or outcome is and then design everything in the planning process to set yourself up for success.ā
(4) Set a deadline.
āHaving done projects earlier [in my career] that were more long lasting, Iām now a big fan of having start and stop times for every project I take on,ā Ivan told us. āItās a sanity saver.ā
By knowing that the work would end in a month or six weeks, Ivan felt more willing to pour sufficient effort into the details a project demanded. He now gives his films and projects full focus for short bursts, then āexhales and takes a breather,ā before moving onto the next endeavor.
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