A brand new club at the New School is offering students a chance to see their personal growth years in the future.
The Time Capsule Club, which was founded in January, is accepting submissions of student work, which they will return to students — potentially years down the road.
Students can submit letters, drawings, or anything else to the club, which will return the work to them at a date of their choosing, club president Isabella Wang told The New School Free Press.
“I just want to capture the evolution of a person,” said Wang, a second-year Illustration major at Parsons, who after graduating high school opened a letter that she had written to her future self in fourth grade. Its impact on her made Wang want New School students to experience this as well, no matter what they made or when they made it.
Wang reached out to her friend, club Vice President Kasper Bielecki, and he loved the idea because he did the same thing in high school. “It was crazy how, not relevant, some of the stuff that I wrote [in my letter to myself] was,” said Bielecki. “It was world-changing to me at the time, as I wrote it. It also [made] me step back and think about whatever I was doing at that point in my life. It did influence me to like do a couple of things differently than maybe if I hadn’t read those things that I wrote to myself.”
COVID-19 impacted President Wang’s decision to create this club. Wang said, “Because you think about the fact you’re isolated within your house, you don’t talk to that many people, and you don’t think the passage of time is real. Having that reminder that you still grow as a person, even though you don’t feel like it’s happening. COVID impacted a lot.”
This club is different from others around The New School, Bielecki said, because while other clubs are about becoming part of a group, the Time Capsule Club is about individual reflection. “Many clubs are made to be social and meet new people, but this is very much the opposite. It’s like, re-meet yourself a few years later.”
This club is run entirely by sophomores, and Redd Gaberman holds the position of treasurer, and Ana Krent is the Social Media Coordinator. As a team, they have worked together to post on social media and share their new club with the student body.
Students can submit photographs, letters, and other works that they have created, Bielecki said. They can submit as many times as they want. Submissions can be returned up to two years later, with plans on extending the return time even further in the works.
About a half-dozen students have entered submissions thus far, with some students sharing photos, others giving photographs with their friends, and with Parsons students submitting drawings, paintings, and designs from school.
Amy Wong, a third-year Communication Design major at Parsons, said she found the club through their Instagram and immediately knew she wanted to submit a few of her favorite drawings. This work means a lot to her, and in a year from now, she will get an email with them back.
“I love looking back at old belongings and feeling the nostalgia and seeing how much I have changed,” Wong said. “Like cleaning your room and finding objects you forgot existed. Because my drawings are a representation of my emotions, I look forward to being reminded of how I felt by looking at my drawings and comparing them to what I make in the future.”