Chain Letters
An O, Miami Project
A project initiated by Chase Simmering, Chain Letters is a site-specific fence wrap featuring 28 poems by Morningside Elementary school students. The poems appear in four languages (English, Spanish, Haitian Creole, and French) and were written during O, Miami’s Classroom Residencies at Morningside.
Read here about our rebranding of O, Miami
Photographs by Chantal Lawrie (else if mentioned)
The 555 ft fence wrap was printed and installed by Bee Free Media
Context
O, Miami partnered with the Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation and Public Works in 2017 to design a county bus wrap. Inspired by O, Miami’s educational program, which provides instruction to elementary schools, our concept was to transform the county bus into a yellow school bus, filling its surface with excerpts from 3rd and 4th grade student poetry. From this, we carry the school bus theme to the fence wrap at Morningside Elementary.
Photographs by Gesi Schilling and Jessica Kassin
Design
In accordance with our guidelines for O, Miami, we created a school bus out of letters and glyphs from the brand typeface Helvetica Now. Formally, the bus shape serves as a container for poems while figuratively signifying language and elementary-age education.
Photograph by Melissa Gomez
The wrap transforms an everyday fence into a colorful art installation that greets students and commuters on NE 4th Court adjacent to the school.
Like with the Miami-Dade County Department of Transportation bus design we wrote poetic puns and injected bits of additional language in between the student poetry.
