British Columbia

Fiona McGlynn found love letters project, creates exhibit

A unique art project about love has opened in Vancouver and runs until Valentine's Day.

Letters written to inspire people with similar challeges inspire art

A unique art project about love has opened in Vancouver and runs until Valentine's Day.

With Love is on display at the Omega Gallery and features work from 18 visual artists created in response to anonymous letters meant to offer support.

"A group of us in Vancouver started to ask people to think about the biggest challenge you faced and then write a letter that would help someone else overcome that," said Fiona McGlynn, the project's founder.

Over the course of a year, more than 100 people sent in their letters. Depression and anxiety was one of the most common subjects.

The founders then partnered with artist Jamie Smith to find artists who would each choose their favourite letter and create a visual response to it.

McGlynn said it's possible the letter writers and the artists could connect over the course of the exhibit.

"It'll be interesting to see how it plays out because most of the letter writers are anonymous," she said.

The exhibit will be on display until Feb. 14, 2015.

To listen to the full interview with Fiona McGlynn, click on the audio labelled: The Love Project