Within each person walking by on the street, riding the bus and sitting in class lies a world of private emotions and experiences — a world of secrets. These secrets show an intimate side of humanity through pain, joy and everything in between. Sometimes, however, people want a way to express these secrets in order to feel comfort and relief. PostSecretU, the campus version of nationally recognized community art project PostSecret, is aiming to help students do just that.
Carol Fountain Nix, the director of the NC State Crafts Center, shared the meaning behind the PostSecretU program.
“Frank Warren started this … and these are 4-by-6 cards typically, and they range from everything,” Nix said. “They range from photos to type that has been cut out to magazines, all kinds of things that just express all kinds of emotions and, really, I think we feel the humanity and become a mirror on our culture of — not only in a society but certainly at the university and campus life — what’s actually going on.”
The Caldwell Fellows initiated the project at NC State as a service learning project last fall, according to Nix. Pablo Campos, a Caldwell Fellow and NC State alumnus, is a speaker for Active Minds, a nonprofit organization that provides the PostSecretU phenomenon to universities. At NC State, the PostSecretU boxes are made in the Crafts Center’s woodshop by Zach Gregory, the wood studio manager.
Since the project’s initiation, many campus organizations have partnered with the Crafts Center to support the project.
“The biggest thing is that we’re partnering with so many organizations on campus,” Nix said. “That’s the biggest thing … just getting our campus partners, everyone from the Counseling Center, Women’s Center, all the diversity groups, Greek life, the libraries, OIED, even military. We really are reaching out.”
The project’s main partner is the Counseling Center, and the phone number for the NC State Counseling Center, as well as that for the National Suicide Hotline, is present on each of the PostSecretU cards.
“As Frank and the PSU [PostSecretU] people will say, secrets bring up a lot of emotions, a lot of things, a lot of memories, and having the Counseling Center on board is critical,” Nix said.
Fri Momin, a third-year studying cognitive neuroscience and industrial medical psychology and a student programmer at NC State’s Women’s Center, discusses how the program connects with the Women’s Center.
“The Crafts Center has been a great resource specifically for students who need some time to destress or to just find something to do with their time … and I think the Women’s Center definitely utilizes that,” Momin said. “Between the Crafts Center and the Women’s Center, there’s been collaborative work in different programming events. The Women’s Center with their focus on promoting equity in gender, and part of it goes into having the capacity to find ways to relieve stress and the Crafts Center is a great resource for that.”
Momin shared the importance of participating in the secret-sharing art project in terms of personal acceptance and relief.
“If there’s a small thing that’s bothering you and you can’t tell a friend, and you can’t really tell a counselor or someone that you know that you can trust, then it’s like, ‘hey, why not just write it down and share your secret with someone,’” Momin said.
The anonymity of the secrets can create a lower-risk environment that makes some people more open to sharing their secrets. A person might not yet be comfortable with telling someone in person, but writing it down on a notecard could be a step toward achieving that comfort level.
“One of the reasons that the Women’s Center is going to have [PostSecretU] over here is because if there’s something that no one brings up to any of us, then people have another resource … to go to,” Momin said. “Everyone has different levels of comfort and if that’s the level of comfort someone prefers, then that’s the level of comfort someone prefers. They’re not going to be forced one way or another, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.”
The PostSecretU program is running through the end of September of this year and will coincide with September’s National Suicide Prevention Month, according to Nix. The program will also coincide with Frank Warren coming to NC State on Sept. 20 to discuss the power of a secret, which is what his TED talk is based on.
Nix reinforced that participation in the program is open to everyone, including faculty and staff, alumni, the public and students. The secret postcards will be collected ongoing over the summer and will be integrated into a display at the Crafts Center.
“The big, cool thing is we’re gonna take acrylic sheets, big ones, and we’re gonna bend them over and they’re gonna be maybe 4 to 6 feet wide,” Nix said. “There will be all these modular displays, so all of the cards will just be mapped onto this acrylic in a tunnel. A tunnel is a representation of campus. Tunnels connect us, so there’s a great metaphor there with how tunnels are a part of our campus and connecting, so this will be a series of modular tunnel installations so it’s an immersive experience to just stand in and walk through these tunnels.”
Vulnerability can serve as a human tether among strangers from all walks of life. A kind of healing can be created through openness and creative expression.
“Understanding the collective and understanding that you’re not the only one — because I guarantee you, [when] you walk through those tunnels, you’re not going to feel alone — you’re going to feel like ‘oh, yeah there’s a lot going on,’” Nix said. “People, when they see each other in the hallways and on the sidewalks and throughout campus, you never know what’s going on with someone.”
The PostSecretU boxes will be going in the Counseling Center and Hunt Library, and are planned to be placed in Talley and at an additional location on Centennial Campus, according to Nix.
PostSecretU stations, which are crafts tables for the postcards, are laid out with magazines, papers and tools for cutting, pasting and drawing on the cards. Students can complete their cards at these tables or take a card with them to work on and then drop it off in the purple and green PostSecretU boxes.
Secrets can be heavy burdens, but students are not alone in coping with them. NC State’s Counseling Center is a confidential way to relieve oneself of intrinsic burdens that have become too heavy to bear.
“I think that brings about much more than just creating postcards. It brings about a campus wide dialogue, which I think is important at this time and certainly for young people to become involved and active in what’s going on,” Nix said. “We’re in a very critical time in our culture, [and] in our life. No one can deny that. I think that’s why this is such a compelling and opportune time to do something like this.”
Director of the Craft Center at N.C. State, Carol Nix stands beside a box for the "Post Secret U" project in the N.C. State craft center on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018. The initiative is an ongoing community art project by Frank Warren who invites strangers to mail him their secrets on postcards anonymously. The project hopes to bring meaningful change to mental health in organizations such as university systems.
