Crappy Gifts for Complete Strangers
Conceived and created by Emma Hendrix and Tanya Marquardt as part of a VIVO Media Arts Residency, Secret Installation, Feb 1-14, 2009.
Emma Hendix and Tanya Marquardt have been friends for over ten years, and created Crappy Gifts for Complete Strangers as a way of reflecting on the nature of their friendship, and play a prank on all the lovers in Vancouver.
In the early hours of the morning, between February 1-14, 2009 the duo left a large plastic heart-shaped box underneath a heart shaped umbrella on an old bench on Main and 17th. On it, a sign in red ink “This is a gift for you.” A random stranger picked it up and took it home to find a crappy gift inside, along with a DVD of Tanya making the crappy gift, and underscored with original sound by Emma. In this way Emma and Tanya revel in their shared distain for Valentine’s, and the odd Western practice of enforcing a day where you give someone a gift just because they sleep with you.