Holy Trinity, Sunderland (1719) and Holy Trinity, Leeds (1721) are two churches partly designed (consecutively) by William Etty (1675-1734, the York architect who was clerk of works at Castle Howard, not the painter of the same name). There are many architectural resemblances and it is conjectured that the Sunderland church was an architectural rehearsal for the grander Leeds church. In 2008-9, both churches were being used increasingly for contemporary art installations and projects. Trans=Send // Transmit sought to connect artists living in the two areas through this connection.

Trans=Send was a Mail art project. A send and add to project, where artists in both locations would create an artwork that could be posted to the corresponding location. This artwork would then be displayed, chosen and worked upon by an artist in that location, and sent back, displayed and chosen, hopefully establishing some kind of visual / creative dialogue between artists in the two locations. The dialogue might be between just 2 artists or might evolve to include many.

Transmit was the radio element of the project. Ideally, artists would have been invited to create pieces involving sound localised in the two churches and broadcast these between the two sites. Using the creative model of Mail art, that of communicating creative ideas through a system of send, response and relay, we hoped to propagate a project where sound and radio artists transmitted ideas across this geographical area and in doing so collaborated on mini projects within the umbrella of the title. Radio practitioners were encouraged to draw diagrams on envelopes for inclusion within the mail art project, as to ideas already brewing for development.

Further Reading @ The Lit & Phil, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. 2007