This is a participatory project that invites any and all to take part! Join us!
Pollinating Kindness: Good Deeds Anonymous (GDA) is a participatory art project based on the idea that art and kindness expand and multiply via individual actions. This project launched in the innovative exhibition, “Olly Olly Oxen Free,” curated by Kristi Engle in the garden at Offramp Gallery in Pasadena, CA, in fall 2014. The project expanded from there with the collective action of participants near and far.
For the first presentation, Buckley folded 100 butterflies using the method of origami master Akira Yoshizawa. Each had a handwritten note inside with directions for an act of kindness. The butterflies were placed in the garden and replenished throughout the run of the exhibition. As participants found and chose to take a butterfly, they agreed to complete the act of kindness written inside. Butterflies have since been created and passed along in California, Louisiana, Florida, and more spots unknown to the artist.
Annie Buckley, Pollinating Kindness, 2014-present, participatory project
Related Links for Pollinating Kindness:
Pollinating Kindness: Good Deeds Anonymous: project site
Essay on “Pollinating Kindness” by Annie Buckley, Radical Actions, March 1, 2016
Select Press:
“CSUSB to use butterflies to pollinate kindness,” Highland Community News, August 7, 2015
“Pollinating Kindness,” by Sarah Bonnette, Times Picayune, December 24, 2014