Very Public Regrets
You might say we're a society of oversharers. Memoirs are our bestsellers these days, and ordinary people pour their hearts out in front of cameras on reality TV shows. Someone has had the bright idea to turn our penchant for confession into public art.
You might say we’re a society of oversharers. Memoirs are our bestsellers these days, and ordinary people pour their hearts out in front of cameras on reality TV shows. Someone has had the bright idea to turn our penchant for confession into public art.
The Regret Project is sort of like Post Secret meets street art. Anyone can anonymously submit his or her “greatest regret,” and the creator of the project then chooses from the pool and turns the most striking ones into paintings, projections and wheatpastes.
Most of the regrets are fairly cliché — “I regret not kissing you,” “I regret not leaving my mark on the city before I left it behind” — but there is something satisfying and a little bit poignant about seeing them broadcast on the street.
You can also read the full list of submitted regrets, which far exceeds the number of artworks so far (the project began in March). Scrolling through the list is alternately amusing (“i regret discovering tumblr”), creepy (“I regret letting you slowly and depressingly die”) and fascinating (“I regret moving to Dubai”); like reading Craiglist missed connections or Found magazine, it offers one more way to get that voyeuristic yet imaginative fix.
(h/t @jeremoss)
