Moving Box
a project with Quite Ourselves
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Intro to Moving Box Project by Ivetta Sunyoung Kang
Moving Box is an alternative itinerary derived from Quite Ourselves’ annual project called Moving Trailer. The 2020 global pandemic halted QO from continuing the Moving Trailer Project, at which emerging artists would gather and share their creations in a small, four-walled rented moving van. Since its inauguration in 2017, Moving Trailer has accommodated more than twenty artists who felt unsettles in Tiohtià:ke/Montreal, Canada, and still shifting between geographical locations and emotional geographies.
Instead of gathering together at a parc in town, Moving Box ignited its journey by physically visiting QO’s artist friends who have spread worldwide in light of keeping the friendship and alliance-ship together nonetheless. A participant member puts their personal items in a generic cardboard box and mails it to the next participant no matter where the person lives. the box has now journeyed over four countries, six cities across the globe.
The more the surface of the box has gotten worn off, ripped off, the more times that wish to reach out to each-other has been accumulated. Nonetheless the shared moment well-persevered in the box has gone through the delivery system upon costs as different currencies as well as numerous delays due to the pandemic. How the box has evolved along with how the life with the pandemic has dissolved into our everyday life might be the exact representation of how we have kept ourselves strong by friendly attachments and sharing personal moments online or by mail during several lockdowns. Thereby, Quite Ourselves acknowledges that friendship is privileged yet enriched by any means.
The box has now settled back in Montreal, where the first mail began in October 2020.
-Ivette Sunyoung Kang
This project was generously supported by Canada Arts Council DIGITAL NOW grant
Snapshot gallery from Moving Box
Learn more about QO
Cats in Boxes
by Breanna Shanahan
Why do cats love sitting in boxes? I wondered this as I removed my 23 pound harlequin spotted boy from the box- again, attempting to close the precious work and gifts and writings that would soon travel further round the globe. I once saw that if you paste a square of tape on the floor, your cat will instinctively go to it, and sit within the 4 corners of the space. Here, residing in the 4 corners of this property line I am grateful for the small art task that is this moving box, as it eats up some of the endless day 13 of quarantine.
Small defined spaces. Google says cats love small defined spaces. They seek warmth and security, and boxes, papers, objects, your sweater and that pile of dust; that breaks up the expanse of the old wooden floor, fill this need. It's an instinct.
My partner once worked for UPS for a short period of time. He told me they would stack the boxes like tetris, from the back to front, every line and square filled. The boxes would take up almost all the oxygen in the vessel, and then the truck becomes a box filled with hundreds of boxes, a math equation of ‘how many can fit’ waiting to be solved. A moving box, a large defined space, filled with medium to small defined spaces. The thought makes me nauseous, but it must be a cat paradise..
As I tape the contents I wonder, what boxes will befriend mine in the long journey it has ahead. What contents do they carry? Gooseneck phone holders for virtual classes? Some clothes from Shien? Food or spices? tea or coffee? The Vaccine? (Would it go through normal post?) Gloves? The toilet paper and diapers we once felt would get wiped out? Masks? More cat hair? or dog hair? human hair? and eyelashes? and nail clippings? and skin cells? and viruses that will only survive on the surface for 24 hours?
*Tail flick*. He looks to the left, as the van descends the hill.
I pluck the white long hairs off my black pants one by one by one. The box will be picked up by this friend.
In this way it is more free than I am, here in the small defined space of my home.
I wave to my colleague out the window as they do this more common favour, and drive the box up the hill to the Canada post that closes at 3pm. My cat and I sit at the window, and we watch her ascend and drive away. We watch until we both can no longer see the old van. Just an empty road, and an empty street and empty windows across the way, and an array of empty defined spaces that may or may not be keeping others like me who countdown the days to break free of the four corners.
Suddenly there is a bird
-and we look to the right!