Public Art and Social Change: The Priority Boxes Art Project
Today we are featuring not just one artist, but an entire organization! The Priority Boxes Art Project, also known as the Peace Box Project, was founded in 2006 by New Jersey-based artist Franck De Las Mercedes – who is also one of our Artist Run Website users. Since the project’s inception, Franck has mailed over 12,000 peace boxes to recipients all over the globe.
Each small box is hand painted by Franck, and labeled to let recipients know that the box contains “love”, “peace”, or “hope.” Anyone can request a box to be mailed to them, and there is no charge aside from possible shipping fees for international requests. I really like that the boxes don’t cost anything, because art is so often prohibitively expensive, and the peace boxes create an opportunity for a lot more people to own an original artwork. In this way, Franck has also created a public discussion about public art and social change.
