The final chapter of Denmark's 400-year-old postal service has been captured in a unique art project by a British artist based in Devon. Gillian Taylor, who specialises in paper art, collected some of the last letters ever to be sent through the Danish system before it ceased operations on 30 December.
A Poignant Artistic Response to Digitalisation
Taylor was moved to act after PostNord, the postal operator, announced it would stop delivering letters, citing the "increasing digitalisation" of society. The company will continue to deliver parcels, but the removal of letter post boxes and the end of the service made headlines globally.
"PostNord ending their delivery of letters and removing post boxes felt like such a significant moment that I wanted to mark it by creating some art," Taylor explained. She asked Danes to post any kind of message—a long letter, a short greeting, a card, or even just an addressed envelope—to a PO Box in Exeter, Devon, just before the service closed.
Memories and Missives: The Stories Within the Envelopes
The response was both surprising and moving. Many correspondents took great care with their dispatches, including old cut-out pictures, hand-drawn illustrations, and collages. A common thread was a profound sadness at the loss of a tangible communication tradition.
One contributor included a map marking the last three post boxes in her town, reminiscing about the childhood ritual of choosing postcards, writing them, and buying stamps. "Receiving mail was even more exciting, especially post from abroad with different stamps and postmarks," she wrote. "I feel it’s a shame that the generations to come will never be able to send or receive a handwritten card or letter."
Another letter described the familial hygge of gathering around the kitchen table as a mother read letters from her sister in Norway, her voice warm with a clear Norwegian accent. The writer now reflects on how much her mother must have missed her homeland.
From Pen Pals to Private Histories
The collection reveals the deep personal connections fostered by post. A 67-year-old woman who received thousands of letters in her life wrote of longing for the postman as a teenager, maintaining lifelong pen friendships, and even writing to a prisoner in America serving a life sentence.
Another poignant account came from someone who, while clearing out a family home lived in for 60 years, found a cache of carefully saved letters from her mother to her father. She has chosen not to read them, respecting their privacy.
Several writers referenced the Danish philosopher Villy Sørensen and his short story The Missing Letters, which imagined a world where people stopped writing. For many, that fiction has now become a stark reality.
Gillian Taylor will now use these Danish letters and their envelopes in a new artwork titled Med Venlig Hilsen (With Kind Regards). Building on her previous work, which includes pieces made from second world war love letters and paper poppies, she hopes to display the finished piece in both the UK and Denmark as a lasting tribute to the era of handwritten communication.
