NORTHAMPTON, Mass. - Local artists Ligia Bouton and Matt Donovan are hoping to create a connection from the past to the present through their new 'Missing Department' art exhibit.

The project was inspired by ads that were written by people about missing individuals in the early 20th century pulp fiction magazines that were published out of New York.

"They could write in and post an ad for a person they had lost track of," Bouton said. "So there were a lot of kids looking for missing parents, parents looking for missing children, spouses who had runaway and abandoned their families and their wives or their husbands who were looking for them." 

The two artists put together ads from the magazine and combined them with paper sculptures of compiled ads from the magazines along with poetry based on their interpretations of what these messages were trying to convey to the community during the period of The Great Depression along with World War II.

Bouton said the print magazine was vital to human connection back then because of the lack of technology in being to communicate efficiently.​

"A lot of people didn't have access to telephones yet," Bouton said. "And so if somebody moved away and said here's my address and then eventually you wrote to them and got that letter returned, how did you track that person down beyond that?"

Donovan, who wrote all of the poetry for the exhibit, read one poem in particular which is based on a story that inspired the project. The poem highlights the struggle of a co-worker reaching out to another in an attempt to find a lost loved one.

"They once had this encounter," Donovan said. "They worked for someone named Ben and then just the three words 'Am in trouble.' So something's going on with Speedy. He's desperately in trouble he's thinking Chloe might able to help him out."

For both Bouton and Donovan, the 'Missing Department' project has value now because of the recent pandemic, which also made communication between families and friends difficult.

"We weren't able to be with a lot of the people that we love and that we enjoy," Bouton said. "And so this was a way to think about that as an experience and try to capture that somehow."

The 'Missing Department' art exhibit is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 12-5 p.m. and will run until Saturday, December 10 at the A.P.E. Ltd. Gallery in Northampton. The exhibit will also include a special poetry reading from local college students on Friday, December 9.