International Festival of Arts & Ideas | Arts & Culture | Yale School of Drama | Yale-China Association | Arts & Anti-racism
Abiba Biao Photos.
The box opened to reveal containers of Chinese sweets and snacks, piled on top of each other in pastel and vibrant color. The soft chatter of aunties and adults, all speaking in Mandarin, filled the background. In the back, miniature crates of vegetables peeked out with Chinese lettering on the side.
It was not just a mailbox, but a portal to a Chinese corner store 7,000 miles away.
Welcome to “The Mailroom,” a two-day interactive exhibition held at the Off-Broadway Theater at 41 Broadway Ave. last Saturday and Sunday. A collaboration of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, David Geffen School of Drama and Yale-China Association, the installation transported viewers halfway across the globe with an homage to historic Chinese mailrooms.
“I want to show how us as theater designers see the world and see stories,” said Jennifer Yuquing Cao, a Yale-China Arts Fellow and second year graduate student at the David Geffen School of Drama. Cao served as the set designer for the exhibition, which included 116 mailboxes that were flown in from China for the installation..
The exhibition, a production of the 2024 Yale-China Artist Residency, drew inspiration from traditional Chinese mailrooms, which served as the centers of communication for neighborhoods before digital communication and into the 1980s and 90s. In each mailbox, artists installed a sort of memory landscape —some from New Haven, and some from China—with specific audio and an array of eye-catching objects that each became tiny, self-enclosed universes.
When she was conceptualizing the project, Cao said she was especially inspired by sensory details, something she’s often hyper-aware of as a set designer. She was excited to take it on: exhibitions and art projects are usually led by directors or script writers.
“We see memories and stories as sensory because we remember things through [how they were] at that moment—how the light was … and how that fabric feels.”
Nothing happened in a silo, Cao added: a team of 12 people worked on “The Mailroom,” which took four months of brainstorms and conceptualizing and one month of installation work.
“It’s very special to us because it’s a very collectively devised piece … It’s very rare that all of us Chinese students at the drama school get to work together on something that’s so deeply connected to our experiences and memories growing up,” said producer Joy Xiaoyue Chen, a theater management student.
The work that went into the exhibition was on full display as it opened to the public last weekend. Walking into the space, viewers came face-to-face with a variety of mailboxes, all hand painted by Cao and her friend, artist Elaine Yining Gao. Some were made out of brightly sanded wood while others were metal. All offered a curated trip down memory lane.
In one, for instance, a mailbox opened to fabric designed and painted by New Haven high school students, the product of several fabric workshops with costume designer Lyle Laize Qin. In another, the installation’s team had placed white rice and red beans, staple foods used within Chinese cuisine, inside the box’s interior. When an attendee dipped their hand in to feel the grains, it increased the intensity of the light bulb above the box.
Another mailbox contained only a school-ready pencil pouch, filled with pens and pencils. When a person opened the mailbox, the cheerful strum of a guitar filled the room, and the surrounding lights dimmed, leaving only a small batch of light overhead. Cao explained that these cues were meant to emulate a sunset, and a children's habit of playing outdoors until the end of day. The pencil case, too, was meant to be reminiscent of elementary school and childhood.
“The Arts and Ideas Festival is about the community of New Haven and the Yale-China Association is about associating China with the New Haven society and how these communities can blend,” Cao said.
Midday Saturday, viewers Sebastián Eddowes-Vargas and Lillian White walked around the room, flitting from mailbox to mailbox. As she attempted to open a series of locked mailboxes, White looked as though she was on a mission. She said she enjoyed the installation, including the boxes that opened—as if by magic—for a peek at the memories inside.
“I just find it beautiful that you can modify the temperature of a room by opening a mailbox,” Eddowes-Vargas said.
As friends of the installation team, White and Eddowes-Vargas added that they came to show support, but left with more than they expected. Both of them agreed that the tiny grocery store, a nod to street-level grocers with open windows, often on the first floor of apartment buildings, was a favorite. White added that she also loved a mailbox with cassette tapes and a stopwatch.
“It’s like opening a door that leads you to another universe,” Eddowes-Vargas said. White nodded in agreement.
“It’s such a beautiful offering from people of their home,” she said. “You feel like you’re on the street or dropped into the place for a moment … it feels like an invitation.”