Bristol package tour to four corners of the world

Eileen Haste was standing in her local post office, when she overheard another customer talking about a parcel he was carrying.

"He was saying that the parcel had been sent to his address, but that no one of that name lived there," she recalls.

When Eileen glanced over, she realised to her astonishment that the name upon the parcel the man was holding was hers.

"I exclaimed: 'That's my name!'," she says. "Then assistant at the post office said: 'Maybe that's your parcel, back from around the world?'."

It was a newly-parcelled version of a package that Eileen had sent from the Mina Road Post Office in St Werburgh's on August 14, 2008, at the start of a unique art project that will go on display today in her allotment shed as part of the St Werburgh's Art Trail.

"It had travelled 30,299 miles, and had taken exactly 300 days to complete its journey on June 10," she says.

"I'd sent pre-addressed envelopes in the package for everyone who was taking part to send it on, but for some reason the woman who was sending it from Mongolia decided to put it all into a box and got my address wrong when she wrote it out.

"Luckily Janak Rana and Julie Kovacs at Mina Road Post Office had sent the first parcel for me and knew about what I was doing, or it could have been sent back to Mongolia.

"It's an amazing co-incidence that I should have just popped into the Post Office to get some stamps and came across my parcel."

Eileen, 40, who is co-director of environmental arts company Tinker & Bloom, came up with the idea for a project about the four corners of the world at the 2006 St Werburgh's Art Trail. "I had a quite whimsical exhibition on then about some characters I'd made out of driftwood I'd found on a beach. I created a myth that they were in search of the four corners of the world, because I liked the idea of intrepid explorers and far-flung places" she explains.

"At that stage I was gathering people's ideas about what the four corners of the world meant to them. People came up with all sorts of suggestions, including some unusual ones like 'the bottom of my sock drawer', 'Shepton Mallet' and 'in my heart'.

"But the places that came up the most were Alaska, Tierra del Fuego at the very bottom of Argentina, New Zealand, and Mongolia. So I decided to send a parcel to all those four corners of the world, and then display it at the arts trail."

The parcel and the stories and objects it gathered on its journey is being exhibited at the 2009 St Werburgh's Art Trail because it took Eileen around 18 months to find people in each of the four corners of the world to become involved in the project, and the parcel then travelled around the world for almost a year before she came across it by chance in her local post office. "I began by making contact with the British Embassies in the four countries, and they put me in touch with people who they thought could help," she says.

When Eileen sent the parcel it contained a leather-bound notebook in which people who received the parcel could write messages, plus disposable cameras and pre-addressed envelopes for forwarding on the package. It returned full of items that had been added by the recipients, including traditional Maori flax weaving from New Zealand, poems, stories, photos, postcards, and local newspapers.

"They were items that the people in the different countries thought might be interesting, and they give an insight into life in the four different corners of the world," says Eileen, who runs Tinker & Bloom with her partner Nick Gray, a conservationist.

"For example, the woman who received the parcel in Argentina is a primary school teacher and she got her pupils involved in the project and sent some of their work in the parcel."

Did she discover a common theme to the four different corners of the world as a result of sending the parcel?

Eileen replies: "I think it was the spirit of generosity of all those who had got involved in the project, and had put in so much time and effort.

"The participant from New Zealand, Lilicherie, summed up what the project was about perfectly when she described it as 'A symbol of goodwill, linking peoples from the four corners for the world'."

The parcel was sent first to Alaska, then posted to Argentina, from where it was sent on to New Zealand, before being forwarded on to Mongolia, and then sent back to Bristol, where it will be on display today and tomorrow as part of the St Werburgh's Art Trail.

"I like the idea of going into a tiny shed and being able to get a sense of life in the four corners of the world," says Eileen.

She is now looking for a new destination for the parcel - albeit one rather closer to home. "I'm hoping to find a venue in Bristol where it can be put it on display, so that more people can see it," she says.

● The allotment shed displaying the Four Corners project is open from 11-5pm today and tomorrow as one of the 26 venues at the St Werburgh's Art Trail - www.stwerburghsarts.org.uk - and can be reached by following signs from the pigsty at the end of Watercress Road.

To find out more about the Four Corners project go to www.four-corners-of-the-world.blog spot.com or call Tinker & Bloom on 0117 907 8369.