txt msg, 2004 – 2012

Claire² is the collaborative practice of artists Claire Bushby and Claire Canham. Together, they explore intersections between digital and material forms of communication through projects that often combine craft, code, and contemporary language systems.

txt msg began in 2004 with an experiment in translating modern communication into a slower, more tactile form. They started sending cross-stitched text messages to one another via snail mail—corresponding, gradually, through stitch in the abbreviated language of instant messaging.

This methodical process disrupts the speed and disposability of SMS, relocating it into the realm of the handmade and the durational. txt msg is an ongoing exploration of how meaning shifts when language is placed in new contexts—pixel becomes stitch, and immediacy becomes intimacy.