Julia Zinnbauer : Phonebox Postcards

9th May was World Collage Day. At MERZ in Sanquhar we celebrated the arrival of 200 packages from collage artists around the world: the collages had been shown in Schwitters’ Army an exhibition organised by Ric Kasini Kadour while on residency in January and February. In May we celebrated the postal services that had enabled a network to be built. But May 9th also held a special meaning for Sanquhar: the date the oldest Post Office in the World would close unless the community stepped in. Then there was Covid-19, and everyone paused.

Julia Zinnbauer is our artist in residence at MERZ for the Summer. A string of coincidences from her childhood to the present day have engaged Julia’s passion for Scotland. When she was young her family acquired a Gilbert Scott telephone box that was cast in Scotland and had it installed in their back garden in Germany.

Julia Zinnbauer‘s work engages architecture and calligraphy with fashion and story telling (here based around her childhood diaries). In anticipation of her Summer Residency Julia has woven an eloquent plea for retaining Sanquhar’s Post Office, poetically illustrating the necessity of communication from a position of isolation.

The film will feature in Sanquhar Arts Festival ‘running on FACEBOOK’ between May 22nd and 25th and will be presented on screen at MERZ as soon as audience conditions permit.