We regret to inform you…

We regret to inform you… by artist Katarina Burin links the memory of Fran Hosken (1920-2006), a pioneering (but now mostly unknown) Boston-based designer and feminist to the current generation in a conversation around obstacles encountered and ways of overcoming them. In We regret to inform you… passersby find aluminum reproductions of a rejection letter Hosken received in 1974 on public surfaces as if tossed and then blown by the wind. This and other correspondence from Hosken’s archives are scattered throughout the city, serving as messages from the past and as prompts leading to a public web-based platform that will host conversations addressing the importance of mentorship and support structures.

The first set of letters can be found at Tufts University Art Galleries, SMFA at Tufts, 230 The Fenway.

Above: mock-ups

Fran Hosken (1920-2006) was one of the first women to earn a degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, Hosken knew and corresponded with the famed modernist architects of her day. She served in the Coast Guard, ran her own small business, built an important photographic archive, and later worked as an influential campaigner for women’s reproductive and civil rights across the globe. She encountered discrimination, chauvinism, misunderstandings, and business failures too. These mundane and thwarting stumbling blocks are preserved in her letters and underpin her courageous work.

Visit weregrettoinformyou.net to learn more and participate.

About the artist

Katarina's artistic practice consists of drawings, models, collages and installations. Burin has recently published the first monograph of the work of Petra Andrejova-Molnár a fictitious character who Burin conceptualizes as deeply involved in the development of architectural movements during the early 20th century. Learn more about Katarina.