This philatelic charity art project (official website) was formerly known as Ukraine Cover/Maxicard Creation (2022). It calls for the collaboration of people from some 50 countries aims at showing solidarity with and raising funds for Ukraine using postage stamps and postcards. I have written an essay detailing the genesis of this project.
This photo was taken in 2009 during my bike tour across Canada. Then freshly arrived in PEI after having travelled through the Maritimes, I was in a state of exhaustion when this vast field of yellow flowers spread out in front of me. No cloud or artificial object came to disturb the landscape. This was a moment of relaxation. I composed this very orderly photo with equal parts shared between the sky and the field to show the harmony between the natural elements.
Recently due to the current Russia-Ukraine conflict, I dug through my archives looking for a relevant image to use in the call for peace. I came across this piece which, by accident or by design, echoed the colour scheme of the Ukrainian flag. This combination of colours suddenly caused an unexpected effect for me as a viewer, and recent circumstances gave this work a new meaning that I had not anticipated as a photographer. When it was taken in 2009, everything seemed to stand still, motionless, which invites meditation, peace, calm, whereas in 2022, this moment of tranquillity contrasts in times of trouble with the madness of war.
Genesis
In early March 2022, my photograph War and Peace (2009, 2022) showing a yellow canola field in Prince Edward Island, Canada, in a backdrop of cloudless blue sky, was quickly becoming my most viewed photograph on Flickr. I decided to print out some copies of 5”x7” postcards to hand out to whoever wanted to show his/her solidarity with Ukraine. Later, I learned that, at about the same time, various countries started issuing special stamps to manifest their support for Ukraine. Up until the project execution date 24 August 2022, these countries are (in the order of stamp issue):
- Latvia (10 March)
- Estonia (24 March)
- Poland (25 March)
- Austria (31 March)
- Croatia (12 April)
- Moldova (19 April)
- Lithuania (6 May)
- Luxembourg (11 May)
- Spain (29 May)
- France (23 June)
- Canada (7 July)
As a stamp collector and cover maker, I immediately thought about creating something philatelically worthy and historically significant using my postcards and these stamps that can be put on auction. Then all proceeds will be donated to Ukraine relief funds.
Hence, I started organising this global project. First, I entrusted the Toronto-based print lab Pikto to produce my postcards in the blue/yellow colour scheme. Second, on the image side of the card, I placed one of the Ukraine support stamps. Third, I mailed these cards to the rest of the world and asked participants to show their solidarity with Ukraine by going to a local post office in their countries on the 24th of August – Ukraine’s national day – to ask for a postmark on my postcards. This way, the visual of the card, the stamp, and the postmark are all related to the same theme – Ukraine – hence are more worth collecting than a plain postcard.
As my project was growing on social media, some of my friends around the world expressed their desire to help. That’s why I decided to enlarge the scope of this project by acquiring various sunflower / yellow flower stamps that can be used to pay tribute to Ukraine and by inviting people from other countries to participate (it’s not the people’s fault that their country’s official postal agency didn’t issue a special Ukraine support stamp). Moreover, I set up a personal fundraiser on Indiegogo platform for people to contribute financially.
Meanwhile, I was also working on an original hand-drawn/painted cover [note from 2023: this kind of artwork is now called philagraph] that will be donated for the same cause. This cover was completed on 19 August and was postmarked on 24 August in Myrnam, AB, whose name means ‘peace to us’. An additional first-day-of-issue cancellation that accompanies the release of this semi-postal stamp in Canada was later added onto the cover.
Peace to Us (2022) is an anti-war artwork that uses the sunflower as a symbol of hope, peace, and growth. The flower replaces the bullet in the gun, offering a reminder that something beautiful and fragile can be just as powerful as physical force. The blue and yellow paint splatters, inspired by Ukraine’s national flag, represent the blood that has been shed in the ongoing conflict in the country.
The composition of the piece is intentionally jarring, with the mechanical gun and dark figure creating a sense of threat and horror. But the natural beauty of the sunflower offers a counterpoint to the violence, reminding us of the potential for new life and growth even in the midst of destruction.
By fighting the brutality of war with something delicate and inspiring, Peace to Us (2022) encourages us to imagine a world where conflict can be resolved through peaceful means. It is a timely reminder of the urgent need for peace and unity in Ukraine and beyond.
List of Participating Countries
Here are the countries whose people participated in the first edition of this project:
- Australia
- Austria
- Canada
- Croatia
- Denmark
- Estonia
- Finland
- France
- Germany
- Japan
- Latvia
- Lithuania
- Luxembourg
- Moldova
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Norway
- Poland
- Romania
- Spain
- Sweden
- Taiwan
- Ukraine
- United Kingdom
- United States of America
Impact
This unique collection of Ukraine support maxicards is not only a testament to the power of philately to unite different individuals across borders and cultures, but also a practical demonstration of the impact that can be achieved through collaboration. All proceeds from the auction of these maxicards will be donated to Ukraine relief funds, making a real difference to those affected by the ongoing conflict. In times of division, it is heartening to see the power of philately to bring people together in support of a common cause.
Examples of Early International Responses
From Japan (with the help of Ai Suzuki): My participant specifically drove nearly 2 hours to get these beautiful sunflower pictorial cancels!
From Spain (with the help of Juan Antonio Casas):
For more examples, please see this updates.
Extra Info
Like stamp, postmark is a philately element commonly collected by the collectors. It bears the information about the time/location the stamp was cancelled, so has historical significance. For example, there are special first-day cancellations that mark the dates/locations the stamps were issued. However, these dates/locations may not have much to do with the theme of the stamp. Maximum card explores this connection further, by requiring the postmark to correspond to the theme of the card. For example, you can fix a stamp of Mozart on a postcard of Mozart, and get the stamp cancelled on Mozart’s birthday in his native city Salzburg, Austria. This way, all the philately elements are in maximum concordance, hence the name ‘maximum card’.
Conventional maximum card forbids abstract concepts such as nation and requires the postcard to be commercialised prior to the release of the stamp. For these reasons, my creations in this project cannot be regarded as maximum cards by conventionalists. Hence my calling them sometimes simply ‘covers’.
Postcard Editions
The postcards that I handed out in early 2022 to people who wanted to show their solidarity with Ukraine are the same as the ones used in this philatelic art project: On the image side is my photograph War and Peace (2009, 2022); on the back side is my hand-written inscription that says:
PHOTO TAKEN IN PEI, CANADA
« WAR AND PEACE » (2009, 2022) BY LINDA
There are 225 postcards produced in this way. The subsequent postcards produced in Canada have printed instead of written inscription on the back side.
All maxicards that will be for sale will bear my hand-written certification of authenticity in the following format on the back side of the cards:
cancelled in X, Y, on 24 August 2022 with the help of Z
Where X is the city/town/village’s name, Y is the country’s name, and Z refers to the project participant who brought the cards to the post office for cancellation.
On the last weekend before 24 August, my Taiwanese friend still hadn’t received my mail sent from Canada (it arrived on 23 August). As a backup plan, I authorised her to print out another 205 postcards using my photograph in Taiwan. The back side of these cards were entirely left black, as I couldn’t hand-write the same inscription while sitting in Canada. However, a QR code sticker is placed at the lower right corner pointing to this webpage, which makes them distinguishable from the Canadian editions. 200 of these unused cards are donated to Taiwan Stands With Ukraine (台灣烏克蘭陣線) for sale. All proceeds go to Ukraine relief funds.
LINDA’S ARTWORLD 