I will fully admit that this project started out as a joke. I saw a video on Instagram of someone hiding tiny plastic ducks in their friend’s home while plant-sitting18 and I thought it would be funny if I did the same in the studio.
A couple days and one Amazon order later, I found myself placing tiny ducks around the studio when I got the idea that I could turn this ridiculousness into a thesis project.
For a long time, I have felt that I notice things that other people do not notice and that I don’t notice things other people do notice. It can be really frustrating. I remember walking somewhere with my roommates in undergrad and pointing out that it was funny that the letters on a nearby license plate spelled out a word. They were beyond confused and I just had to let it go. I often just pretend I don’t notice things because I don’t want to end up in a situation like that.
I realized that hiding ducks in the studio could be turned into an experiment in seeing what people notice, so I took pictures of the ducks I had hid around the studio and started keeping an ear out for people mentioning the presence of the ducks.
I decided to turn the photos and things I heard people say into a series of Risograph postcards with typography inspired by vintage postcards.
Process
Test print from the Risograph that I thought was funny.
One of the ducks I hid in the studio.
The back of the postcards (printed on the inkjet printer).
Postcards
A group of students walked into the studio the same evening, just after I had finished photographing the ducks. One of them pointed out that there was a duck in the scanner. The next day, I passed a group of students in the hallway who pointed out the one that I had put on one of the shelves outside of the senior studio.
These two postcards highlight two quotes I heard from people over the next few days, both questioning where the ducks had come from. My response to both was something along the lines of “I have no idea."
Coming back to Instagram, where this project started, one of my classmates posted images of the ducks on their story accompanied by the quotes above.
By this point, I had run out of things that other people said about the ducks in the studio, but I wanted to use my remaining photos to detail my feelings about what I notice and what I don’t notice.
While I was bringing this project to a close, I brought up what I was doing to a classmate, who let me know that she had noticed the ducks.
The last two postcards were a chance for me to express my humor. The first one is a pun on the name of our exhibition, Hide Self View, because I hid a duck on the test version of a duratrans frame that is standing in the studio. I also wanted to play homage to the vintage postcards that inspired the design of my postcards with “Greetings From 808."
18. @thatmomabigail