Fish Mail Art 2007,
Redfoxpress, Dugort, Achill Island, County Mayo, Ireland / Seoul, South Korea, 2007 (Compiled. Francis Van Maele & Antic-Ham / Kim Hye Mee)
Fish Mail Art 2007 is a thematic international mail art project conceived and organized by Franticham — the collaborative identity of Francis Van Maele (Ireland) and Kim Hye Mee, known as Antic-Ham (South Korea). The project was coordinated from two geographically distant but emotionally connected locations: Van Maele's studio at Dugort on the cliffs of Achill Island, County Mayo, facing the Atlantic Ocean, and Antic-Ham's address in Gangnamgu, Seoul. The call for entries invoked the fish as a universal symbol of longing, desire, union, and hope — a metaphor rooted in the physical separation of the two organizers by the sea, and enriched by the ancient mythological resonances of the fish in female spirituality, fertility, and the divine feminine across world religions.
The call asked participants to send one or more fish-themed works in postcard size, with a deadline of 30 April 2007, promising a colour catalog to all participants and the possibility of exhibitions. Works could be sent to either or both addresses simultaneously. This dual-address structure was characteristic of Franticham's projects and underscored the transatlantic, transcontinental philosophy of the mail art network: the postal route itself as conceptual medium.
Francis Van Maele was born in Belgium in 1947 and founded Redfoxpress in 2000, moving to Ireland in 2002 and settling on Achill Island in 2005. That same year he met Antic-Ham at the Seoul book fair; the two have run Redfoxpress together since. Their mail art project of 2006 on "fish as symbol" directly preceded this 2007 catalog, indicating that the Fish theme had an extended creative life across at least two project cycles.
The resulting catalog, published by Redfoxpress in 2007, documents 210 participants from 27 countries, making it one of the most internationally expansive mail art publications produced from Ireland. Contributors span Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Uruguay, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The bottom left corner of the catalog cover bears the Korean transliteration of "Franticham" (프랜틱햄), while Korean postal stamps applied to the cover affirm the dual cultural identity of the project.
Several participants documented in this catalog are recurrent figures in international mail art networks of the 2000s, including Clemente Padín (Uruguay), Vittore Baroni (Italy), John M. Bennett (USA), Ruggero Maggi (Italy), Ryosuke Cohen (Japan), Klaus Groh (Germany), Jürgen O. Olbrich (Germany), Rod Summers (VEC), Bernd Reichert (Belgium), and Vladimirs Jakusonoks (Latvia), among many others.
