UDC is Site of 'Mail Escape' Performance

Artist Wilmer Wilson IV presented the first in a series of performances reenacting Henry "Box" Brown's successful escape from slavery.  Brown, a 19th-century Virginia slave, encased himself in a wooden crate and arranged to have himself mailed to abolitionists in Philadelphia in 1849.

Wilson's performance consists of the artist affixing postage stamps to his entire body.  He then walks to a local post office and asks to have himself mailed to freedom.  He then returns to the performance site and removes the postage stamps.

Commissioned by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities as part of the 5X5 Temporary Public Art Initiative, Wilson's performance will next appear at the Lincoln Theater (1215 U St., NW) on April 9^th then at the Old Post Office Pavilion (1100 Pennsylvania Ave, NW) on April 13^th.