2026 Mail Art Project Unveiled

IA is pleased to share the artistic contributions created by participants from IA member institutions for the 2026 Mail Art Project (MAP). The 2026 Mail Art Project takes inspiration from the 2025 IA National Gathering – Providing Passage: Practicing the Worlds We Want, which invited us to consider how to provide passage for one another and all beings towards a more just, liberatory, and caring future.

The invitation encouraged participants to find grounding and inspiration from the following “magical questions” (Priya Parker, 2020) as they engaged in community, creativity, and collage-making:
• What carries you?
• What is your place of peace? How do you get there?
• What practices help you imagine?

These magical questions were the centerpiece of The IA Clearing, a series of interactive activities, reflective spaces, and screenings that were woven through the 2025 IA National Gathering. They remind us that we are already making the world that we are standing for. We all have the tools. We’ve known how to do this since we were kids. In this iteration of the Mail Art Project, we called on participants to share a glimpse into what they are imagining and practicing.

You can explore all submissions from this year (and the archive from previous years) on the Mail Art Project portal on our website.

ABOUT THE MAIL ART PROJECT

The Mail Art Project is an annual creative activity free to IA members, inspired by the IA National Gathering theme. Mail art, or correspondence art, traditionally has been a way for individuals to create and send small-scale works of art through the postal service. A variety of media can be used in mail art, including: paper, postcards, found or recycled images and objects, stamps, paint, photographs, music, poetry, or anything else that can be put in an envelope and sent via post.