Notes to Self

Notes to Self is an ongoing conceptual art project I began on April 14, 2002. Each day, I write a letter to myself—sometimes poetry, sometimes narrative, sometimes reflection—and mail it to my own address. Every letter remains sealed; none have been opened. Over 8,000 (and counting) letters are archived in carefully organized boxes, accompanied by a detailed database that records each letter’s date and the U.S. postage stamp used—encompassing nearly every stamp issued by the United States Postal Service since 1847.

The project functions as a durational performance, a living archive, and a meditation on memory, presence, and documentation. By choosing not to open the letters, Notes to Self resists traditional narrative closure and instead highlights the ephemeral nature of personal experience. The sealed envelopes become artifacts of time, moments preserved but intentionally unread.

Notes to Self has been exhibited in gallery installations featuring floor-to-ceiling displays, in filmic adaptations using rapid-sequence scans of the envelopes, and as a fully digitized archive. It invites reflection on how we record and remember—and what it means to archive a life without revisiting its contents.