You may have heard of Sofia Kavlin, a New York City-based conceptual artist whose work sits at the intersection of poetry and urban installation.
Her “Unsent Letters Mailbox,” founded on Valentine’s Day in 2024, had the artist haul a wooden mailbox into the heart of Washington Square Park in New York City, inviting passersby to submit anonymous letters that they wanted to send to an ex, let’s say, but have not.
In addition to this, Kavlin allows guests to read someone else’s letter from the mailbox, as a way to let people know they are not alone.
Over the past two years, Kavlin has organized writing workshops, events and gatherings to help bring together the broken-hearted and give them space to share their story, anonymously.
It highlights a big city’s emotional underground and creates a living, anonymous archive of our unspoken, inner thoughts. “The Unsent Letter Mailbox” has become a quiet phenomenon across the city, garnering buzz by word of mouth. Since it started, Kavlin has received over 4,000 anonymous letters and had over 50,000 people participate in the project.
The project has since grown into a fiscally-sponsored multi-disciplinary group underNuyorican Poet’s Cafe, an institution renowned as the birthplace of poetry slams and the launchpad for notable literary careers since 1973.
This partnership, which started in 2025, provides crucial institutional backing for fundraising and networking, allowing “The Unsent Letter Mailbox” to expand its reach.
The Unsent Letter Mailbox provides creative engagement through free pop-ups, ticketed events, collaborations with visual and performance artists, and partnerships with institutions and companies.
“I designed and built the original unsent letter mailbox while completing my studies in Design and Urban Ecologies at Parsons in February 2024, and at the time, I was woodworking and decided to try my hand at creating urban installations,” said Kavlin. “I love the thought of bringing participatory art into the cities, and inviting residents to expand on the original work.”
“With the addition of award-winning producer Bonnie Edwards to the team, the project has already begun its geographic expansion, notably with programming in Tennessee last October, culminating in a month-long gallery exhibit at Clear Story Arts in January of this year,” said Kavlin, a conceptual artist, performance artist and educator who has performed at PS122 Gallery in New York, has developed a performative and participatory urban practice consisting of alternate reality game design (WNDRLND urban scavenger hunt), a pop-up event series titled “Slow Matters” (2023), temporary urban installations (2023-2024), and a live anonymous letter-writing series titled “The Write to Read” (2024).
Next up, Kavlin will host an upcoming event, “Subway Mailbox: Pop-up” on June 2nd, followed by an anonymous writing salon on May 29th. The “Unsent Letter Mailbox” activation, complete with a larger-than-life mailbox and writing stations, is designed to transform a subway car (a quintessential New York meeting point) into a collective space for reflection and expression.
The subsequent writing salons, co-hosted with DASHE mixologists and partnered venues across the city, offer a more curated setting for live anonymous readings, fostering moments of shared catharsis and unexpected human connection around themes like “First Loves.”
“The Unsent Letter Mailbox was designed as an urban activation inviting people to write and read anonymous unsent letters,” she said. “We set up the signature larger-than-life mailbox, a writing table, doodled-tent, and provide pen and paper. I’ve always wanted to activate a subway car, as a space that screams out New York City, and is by default, a place where New Yorkers from all walks of life come together. The anonymous writing salon emerged from this original urban activation as a way to invite people to write and participate in live anonymous readings in a curated and intimate setting. We partner with venues around New York, and a mixologist group called DASHE to create craft cocktails drawing from our chosen theme (the May salon will be around First Loves).”
She explains how this all ties into the meaning of the project: “What is produced is a moment of shared catharsis, by expressing what you were never allowed to say out loud, as well as unique moments of human connection and belonging where strangers realize that they are much closer to each other than they might think.”
Beyond public art installations, Kavlin has carved a unique niche by bringing poetry into high-profile commercial and experiential settings. While at Ars Poetica, she closed over $50,400 in contracts within six months, collaborating with brands like Brunello Cucinelli, Glossier, and Soho House.
These organizations, facing an increasingly AI-driven and mediated world, sought poetry to center what Kavlin describes as “what makes us human — and offers a chance for these organizations to interact with their client base in an intimate, analog and unmediated way.”
For Valentine’s Day activations, Cucinelli and Glossier used typewriter poetry, while Soho House commissioned a poetry week featuring a slam, a workshop, and an open mic.
“Both Brunello Cucinelli and Glossier wanted poetry to be an essential part of their Valentine’s Day activations, while Soho House brought me in to organize a poetry week for which I designed a poetry slam curating guest writers from the Austin community, and inviting Soho House members to exercise their creative thinking with a poetry workshop followed by an open mic at the slam,” said Kavlin. With AI becoming central to many organizations’ workflows and even acting as a mediator for clients; there are less opportunities for high-profile organizations to center what makes us human.”
Her expertise extends to designing the poetry components for major experiential events, including the 2025 album launch for Gracie Abrams, an artist with over 6 million Instagram followers. Working with Slaack, an experiential production studio, Kavlin designed a live typewriter poetry activation for Abrams’ multi-city pop-ups in Los Angeles, Toronto, and New York City. Fans, drawn to Abrams’ “pop catharsis” narrative style, received on-the-spot poems tailored to their thoughts and feelings, resulting in over 600 bespoke pieces written over two days.
“After aligning on a series of creative decisions including ambiance, palette, and copy we designed the live typewriter poetry activation where guests could receive on-the-spot poems in response to their thoughts and feelings,” she said. “Gracie Abrams’ creative process draws heavily on the narrative arts and poetry offers this cathartic experience for fans in a way that allows them to enter the world of the album, and participate in the creative process in a way that no other activation can mimic.”
“I was honored to receive a Hinge One More Hour grant, which is given to artists and projects creating spaces for in-real-life connection for Gen Z as a way to respond to the U.S Surgeon General’s 2023 advisory on the loneliness epidemic linked to a major decline in social participation,” notes Kavlin.
“This is a highly competitive grant selecting standout projects that center in-person quality time, and incentivize cost-effective and convenient ways for people to gather. The Unsent Letter Mailbox stood out as a project that is meeting Gen Z where they are; on the streets of major cities, and providing an outlet for them to express real anxieties and longings away from the performative pressure of social media.”
Similarly, the ArtsBuild grant Kavlin also recognized the project’s capacity to enhance community quality of life and inclusion by bridging social differences through anonymous letter writing, leading to high community participation and economic value in Tennessee.
“The ArtsBuild Artist Work grants are awarded to projects that provide access to artistic experiences addressing issues such as quality of life and inclusion,” she said. “The Unsent Letter Mailbox met ArtsBuild’s and the Tennessee Arts Commission’s goal of building a stronger community by creating a unique way to bridge across social differences through the art of anonymous letter writing. The result was an unusually high degree of community participation with over 200letters collected over the course of 3 pop-ups, 13 local artists selected for the exhibition series, and 5 pieces of art sold on opening night creating meaningful cultural and economic value for the community.”
Kavlin holds a BA in Anthropology from the University of Toronto (2018), an MSc in Development Economics from LSE (2019), and an MA in Design and Urban Ecologies from Parsons School of Design (2024). She is the recipient of the Nudge Global Impact Award (2022) and became a Soho House fellow in 2024.
RSVP to her events here: unsentlettermailbox.com.
