Senior Design Project: Our Love Letters

My senior project, Our Love Letters, started from an idea that I had in April of 2020, at the start of shelter in place, when I was sending and receiving love letters often. Letters would arrive in the mail and my mom would quarantine them for two weeks before I could open them. I’ve always loved writing and receiving letters from loved ones. I have a journal of unsent and drafted letters that I’ve been adding to since 2018. I’ve always been curious if anyone else had unsent letters as well, and maybe even letters meant for me. With the isolation that came with quarantine and everything moving to a virtual reality, I wanted to know how virtual love could feel less virtual, and how one can feel loved or less lonely while isolated. My project, Our Love Letters, attempts to feed my curiosity and answer these questions in two parts. First, a website that serves as a home for love letters left by you or anyone written out to specific first names, but left anonymously. Second, a traveling pop-up love letter box that brings the virtual mystery experience to the physical world. For both parts, it is a mystery of whether the letter is written about you by someone you know or about someone you share your name with. At the end of the day, the project is meant to serve as this home for old or new letters that people can visit and revisit. It is the collection of our love letters.