More mail art from the early 90's

In 1992 there was an event called "year of the networker", which was about international collaboration between individuals and small groups. People were using bulletin boards, news groups and email but most of the creative work was still being done through the postal system. BW photocopies, rubber stamps, stickers and hand colouring were a huge part of all this as the cost of colour repro was still really high. There was a huge buzz around the idea of DIY culture and a lot of that energy naturally shifted online were it could.

Items from Cactus

Cactus was a great project set up and run by Tony Credland and Glenn Orton back in 1989. It was essentially a mail art project based around fairly mass collaboration (well in pre-digital terms) . The idea was simple and elegant. Cactus sends out a call for entries around a simple brief, usually a single word or phrase. Then as a participant you send back multiples of your piece (usually around 100). Tony and Glenn then design and print up a lovely container and send you back one piece from everyone else.
I only have this one "Fuel to fight Fascism" but there were quite a few with some beautiful work, so if you ever find one - grab it.

Early Adbusting

Great early Adbusters work

Sometimes judges are OK

Back in the days when we had other stuff to worry about.