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Brian Singer 

100+ Journals

“This is an experiment, and you are part of it.” With the above invitation, San Francisco graphic designer Brian Singer launched the 1000 Journals Project in August 2000. The journals feature 100 unique cover designs created by a variety of artists. The blank notebooks were left in various public places, sent abroad with travelers, and passed from hand-to-hand, inviting […]

Mar 19 - Jun 28, 2012

“This is an experiment, and you are part of it.”

With the above invitation, San Francisco graphic designer Brian Singer launched the 1000 Journals Project in August 2000. The journals feature 100 unique cover designs created by a variety of artists. The blank notebooks were left in various public places, sent abroad with travelers, and passed from hand-to-hand, inviting acquaintances and strangers to share their thoughts in words and images. The journals have traveled by air, sea, and land throughout forty countries and all fifty states.

These pages have been used as diaries, for philosophical and political statements, whimsical observations, heart-rending confessions—a dazzling array as diverse as their authors. While many journals remain “at large,” more than thirty have made their way back to Brian Singer; a selection of these is on view in this exhibition, together with digital images from others still in circulation.

In their travels, the journals came to rest in hostels, cafes, and law offices, phone booths, ballparks, and bookstores. They have been abandoned at airports, left in the lost and found, stolen during a robbery, and even deposited in a cave. Through person-to-person encounters, the journals generated an international conversation. The 1000 Journals Project illustrates and celebrates both the creativity of the individual and the capacity to connect within a shared human experience.

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