While the mailboxes themselves constituted an analogue approach, PPM’s website, http://eng.partizaning.org, documented the findings. Letters from the mailboxes were scanned, and photographs of the mailboxes showing their transformation through graffiti, stickers, and in some cases, damage, were uploaded. The website made the artistic research widely available. Most importantly for the artists, PPM activated social change from the bottom up by stimulating dialogues within different communities about shared problems. For example, in the district of Mitino, PPM was supported and promoted by municipal authorities who resolved local street problems—public lights and streets in disrepair or issues with illegal food vendors—as identified in the mailboxes.
As a placemaking initiative, PPM successfully engaged a variety of suburban communities in Moscow, facilitating the identification of site-specific problems and wishes, as well as humanizing the public spaces in the vicinity of the mailboxes. People felt free to write on the mailboxes, place stickers, and in various ways, to respond to the human need for expression. In an increasingly digitized world, PPM is commendable for reaching out to participants on the poor side of the so-called digital divide. It is particularly compelling in its vision of grassroots solutions to local problems, given the location of the project in the former Soviet Union, the birthplace of the modern command economy based on centralized top-down planning. Notably, in at least some instances, it led to direct improvements in the community through municipal authority engagement.
All copyright belongs to Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai University.
