A Gratitude Post Exchange by Poppy Kanu
Our latest commissioned window display, by Poppy Kanu, is a celebration of the not just a shop creative community and the gratitude we feel for people in our everyday life.
Poppy Kanu invited people from the not just a shop community: our makers, staff and customers, to write a short message to thank someone who has helped to make them feel connected, supported and valued. All participants of the project received a hand-printed card for them to write their personal message of gratitude. By the act of writing down our thanks, Poppy hopes a ripple effect of gratitude will be created, that may be shared and celebrated with the wider community that visit the shop.
Poppy’s window asks the public to interact with the window, to individually reflect on the questions it asks so that we also visualise the intricate ecosystems that sustain us.
We caught up with Poppy to learn more about her inspiration, design process and what she loved most about working on the display.
Hi Poppy! We absolutely love your enchanting window display.
Was is the creative concept behind the window display and how does it links with the brief of ‘community’?
The current window display, ‘Dear not just a shop community’, is a gratitude post exchange. Customers, makers and staff were invited to write a message to thank someone who keeps them connected, supported and valued.
Participants were sent a hand wood- block printed postcard in the post to write or draw on and a stamped return envelope. While the messages written may not necessarily be shared directly with the person they are addressed to, the concept is that the act of writing down and reflecting on our thanks is in itself a powerful one that can create a ripple effect of gratitude. I wanted to visualise the intricate support systems that sustain us as well as celebrate those figures that support us that may sometimes be under-recognised.
What was your favourite part of this project?
The moment where I was holding a stack of postcards that had all travelled for miles and then returned back to me. Each postcard had been on an individual journey: through the postal system, into someone’s home and handled with care. The messages each carried a sincerity and feeling of love – for example, one reads:
“Dear Mona,
Thank you for taking me to my first ever Ceramic Class. 25 years ago you arranged childcare for my son and took me to Evening Class at the Community College. It all started there. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Hatice Alice Ozer”
And another,
“Marianna,
We’ve known each other since we were five and grown up side by side through so much happiness as well as sadness. Even though we now live 9,000 kilometers away, becoming Mothers somehow made us ever closer.
We are each other’s biggest cheerleaders and you are still the first person I want to call when life feels heavy. No matter where I am in the world, you make me feel connected to home, to myself and like I’m never really alone.
Thank You.”
The messages moved me. I found myself resonating with many of the stories and feeling a distinct sense of our common humanity. The messages all revealed an innate vulnerability and the way in which the threads of our lives are inextricably connected with each other.
What was your creative process for this project, and did you encounter any challenges along the way?
I carved five different wood blocks for this project, two for the back of the postcards and three for the hanging text. Being able to incorporate an analogue printmaking process was important to me as print production is a big part of my practice and way of working by hand. It felt exciting to be printing pages that wouldn’t be bound in a book but would instead be suspended over two metres in the air.
The biggest challenge was preparing elements of the project from home, as I don’t currently have a studio space and mainly work when my son naps or in the evenings when he sleeps. I don’t have a clean white wall which is the same height as the shop window, so I instead used my 2-year-old’s painting easel to pre-tie all the hanging threads to the wooden dowels.
In order to transport these to the shop so they didn’t get tangled I had to wrap the long string around strips of cardboard and then unwrap them at the shop. I also printed all the woodblock prints at home, using Cranfield safe wash relief ink, a cheap roller and a wooden spoon. Sometimes my son helped me print the larger A3 prints by stepping on them with his feet before I pressed the wooden spoon over them. Whilst challenging at times, I find it empowering to be able to work in this way, exploring how to print without a press in
these alternative and more accessible ways.
What did you want visitors to take from the display?
I would like people to spend time with the display and take a moment to slow their pace. I hope people read the messages and appreciate the intimate insight into each participant’s internal world. By reading the messages and the prompt: ‘if you could write one line to thank someone who keeps you connected, supported and valued, what would it be, who would it be to?’ I hope visitors spend a moment genuinely reflecting on who this would be for them, too.
There are more printed postcards available in the shop which can be requested and added into the existing display. I don’t want the window display to be static, but something that prompts a thought process of gratitude which folds into the rest of their day, week, outlook. Ultimately, in sharing our gratitude and vulnerability together I hope we create a visual map of the communities that sustain us and the shared humanity that connects us.
What advice would you give to other creatives looking to take on a project like this?
Your artform and the medium you work in can be translated and adapted into any space. In what ways could you question what an installation can be? The team at not just a shop helped me iterate my initial design and understand that sometimes less is more. My most successful design sketch was the one which embraced space rather than trying to cram in multiple elements. Making a scaled diagram was such a helpful reference point throughout the project and when it came to installation it became my map
Poppy Kanu is a London-based designer who graduated in Graphic Communication Design from Central Saint Martins in 2025. She uses publishing to archive overlooked stories and question their representation. She is drawn to stories of care and of work that is often made invisible. Through a conversation-led practice, she seeks to create space for people to express their authentic and nuanced experiences, exploring how community can be built in both quiet and loud ways.