Positive affirmations are a known way to boost your mood and spread positivity, and one local artist is taking that a step further with a new community installation known as “Awesome Boxes.” “It’s this happy little box and it’s got a hug,” said Rich Loen, the artist who created the Awesome Boxes. “You press a button and it just tells you something nice and that’s the core of it. Then if you double press it, you can leave your own nice messages.” The long-time artist says he came up with the idea to spread cheer. “Oh, everybody loves it. Everybody is having fun with it. We haven’t even had a chance to put the signage up or anything like that, but people are already using it exactly as intended, just by discovering how it should work and what they want to do,” said Loen. The boxes are set up near the downtown Ottawa sign, at the Ottawa School of Art, and at the Ottawa Art Gallery. Another one is soon being installed near the National Gallery of Canada. Megan Grossman checks the recorded messages and says there have been approximately 450 left behind so far. “Whether it’s somebody singing a song or just saying hello from this place or that place, or whether some of them leaving quite long messages in support and you got this kind of thing and I get to listen to them all,” Grossman said. Loen says the awesome boxes will be in place until December and are available 24 hours a day. Yazen Sadek stumbled upon the one by the Ottawa sign while out on his bike. “It seems like something that’s cool and new to the city, so I wanted to try it out for the first time,” said Sadek. Sadek also recorded a message. “It’s very important to spread positivity and get the word out there to smile and be positive,” he said. “It made my day much better. I still didn’t drink my coffee, so it cheered me up.” It’s the exact reason why Loen created the installation in the first place, to spread joy. “The whole idea of doing this fits with kind of the ethos of our studio, which is doing things that make people happy, that bring a smile to people’s faces, and that are kind of fun.”
