Spare a hankie, if you can, for Wanganui artist Leigh Anderton. Anderton is asking New Zealanders to post her a handkerchief toward a sculpture designed to acknowledge and symbolise personal and collective grief.
Spare a hankie, if you can, for Wanganui artist Leigh Anderton. Anderton is asking New Zealanders to post her a handkerchief toward a sculpture designed to acknowledge and symbolise personal and collective grief.

As people contend with devastating international events alongside more personal moments of sorrow, we live in a culture that tends to push aside grieving in favour of progressive response, she says. The mood is to act rather than contemplate.

Meanwhile, though it may seem that today disposable tissues are favoured over the traditional 'hankie', two million handkerchiefs are still sold annually in New Zealand. Rather than being thrown away, the handkerchief is cleaned and stored for future need. Symbolically, this acknowledges the ongoing relationship we have with grief - it is not something to be simply disposed of.

"We often see or experience second hand grief or loss through the media and feel overwhelmed and powerless to even make a response," Anderton says. "My sculpture is about the interrelated knot of loss, faith and hope. Sending me a hankie is like sending a positive flag of hope. It recognises the unspoken suffering."

A handkerchief is simple but poetic personal item that caries the action of the person who uses it, she says. It is used for muck and tears. To offer a handkerchief to another is to offer acknowledgement.

"Being part of this project is a compelling but simple act to honour all the loss and also hope we might experience," Anderton says.

Handkerchiefs need to be posted before the end of October for the November exhibition. They can be addressed to: Leigh Anderton, Good Grief Project, artSHEd, 124 Campbell Street, Wanganui.