Inspiration for Documention - USPS

How to address a ubiquitous institutional and banal phenomena.

Kristoffer Tripplaar is Washington, D.C. native and a graduate of the Corcoran College of Art & Design. Currently represented by SIPA Press and published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Fortune Magazine, Rolling Stone and People Magazine.  

The Post Office Project  which evolved from a simple, one off assignment to photograph a few post offices to go along with a story on the proposed closing of several hundred branches as part of cost cutting efforts by the Postal Service. It was a slow news week so he decided to visit a number of them.  

Tripplaar's statement also inspires and clarifies:

"The post office provides us with a universal sameness. They exist for a specific reason: the distribution and entry point of letters and parcels carried by the United States Postal Service. For nearly a century it was the only place that a person could go for such a thing. Today mail volumes are dropping off and what you do receive now tends to be mostly bills, advertisements and the odd movie rental. The massive infrastructure that was built to deliver the mail allowed the rapid distribution and delivery of information and goods. That system laid a basis for the growth of this country into an economic power.

Think about it, when you mail a letter or package it spends a brief moment in a human hand. It’s then put into an automated system of sorters, conveyor belts, vehicles and planes where it crosses the imaginary lines drawn by zip codes and street numbers. When it finally arrives at its destination it’s placed there by a human hand. It’s a system unlike anything else and I am truly fascinated by it."