Last Day, First Day

November 9, 2016

Last Day, First Day proposes Presidential letter-writing as a reflexive and political act.

You are invited to write and share two letters: one for a President leaving, and another for a President arriving. The mental, physical, poetic, and political space of letter-writing is a platform to communicate outwards to our leaders at profound moments in their careers as much as it is for us a means to reflect inwards during a profoundly fractured moment in American history.

Writing prompts a communicative space to rebel, to lament, to plead, to warn, to praise, to digest, to move forward. Please feel free to share this project with your community. Letters from any person, anywhere in the world are wholeheartedly welcome.

With great love and great thanks,
Erik

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Political action takes all forms. Artist Erik Benjamins, shocked after the November 8 election, began to collect letters addressed to Obama on his last day in office, and addressed to Trump on his first day in office. Those letters, contained in this book, viscerally demonstrate the hopes and fears of a nation during a moment of political upheaval. The 168 letters range from political analysis to guttural reaction, they take the form of photograph and drawing. They come from artists, students, friends, citizens. There is even space in the book for you to write your own letter. Will you be heard?