Peterborough’s public bulletin boards have always been a good spot to find out what’s happening in the community. Last week, though, a few flyers started popping up that advertised some pretty unusual events.
“Fart In the Park,” one read, scrawled in black marker and pen on a piece of printer paper. “Come and let loose with us in the Park every fifth Wednesday of the month. It’s part of nature, so why not do it in nature?”
Another flyer advertised an “Ice Cream Unsocial.” “Don’t bring your friends, don’t bring your family. Come alone, eat alone.”
The seemingly innocuous flyers blended into the sea of ads and posters thumbtacked up on various boards around town, but it wasn’t long before some keen-eyed observers took note and posted their strange discoveries on social media. Eventually, a post made its way into ConVal art teacher Mary Goldthwaite-Gagne’s news feed and she knew — it was the result of an in-class assignment.
“When I saw it on Facebook getting passed around way before it was due, that was super exciting for me,” Goldthwaite-Gagne said. “Just to see other people find humor in it and be talking about it, people that might not go to an art show or even know they were interacting with a piece of art — I thought that was really cool.”
The culprit behind these subversive flyers is Magnus Carlton, a ConVal student who created the pieces as a sort of homage to artist Nathaniel Russell, who puts up similar flyers in public places.
“It’s strange how all these flyers could be put up,” Carlton said, “and one could be just completely absurd and strange and no one would really notice unless they took the time to look. If I put these up, people will take time to look, and not jsut at the flyers — they’ll take time to look at their surroundings and appreciate them.”
Carlton was excited to receive feedback on his work not just from the public, but from Russell himself, as the artist responded to Carlton when he reached out online to share his work.
There is one hitch in Carlton’s plan, though, he only recently realized that there are actually “quite a few” fifth Wednesdays throughout the course of a year — in fact, there’s one coming up on June 29. So, if you happen by Putnam Park that day, you might just see a very interesting gathering.
“I’m kind of hoping — and kind of hoping not — that they organize an event just for that,” Carlton said.