Artist to gather messages for next president

Artist Sheryl Oring will bring her project, “I Wish to Say,” to UNC Charlotte for three sessions on Wednesday and Thursday, March 11-12.

For “I Wish to Say,” Oring dresses in vintage 1960s secretary attire and sets up a makeshift public office on-site, complete with a manual typewriter, and invites members of the public to dictate postcards to the next president. Each card is typed verbatim. Originals will be included in an exhibition in the Projective Eye Gallery at UNC Charlotte Center City in August and September, to coincide with the Republican National Convention, and then sent to the White House after the election.

Since launching the “I Wish to Say” project in 2004, Oring has typed more than 4,000 postcards to the president from dozens of locations across the United States. Her book, “Activating Democracy: The I Wish to Say Project,” was published by the University of Chicago Press.

Oring is professor and chair of the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art and Art History at Wayne State University in Detroit.

She will type messages at UNC Charlotte from noon to 1:30 p.m., March 11, at the Cato/CHHS quad and from 11:30 to 1 p.m. and 3 to 4:30 p.m., March 12, near Peet’s Coffee in Atkins Library and at the main entrance of Atkins Library, respectively.

Photo, by Harrison Dreeves, Sheryl Oring for “I Wish to Say.”