Fear Messenger Project, 2006

200 live snails, water-based paint, Sharpie marker

Fear Messenger was a project at the Cultural Exchange Station in Tabor, Czech Republic. The city had been a radical Hussite stronghold in the fifteenth century; they defeated four crusades from the Holy Roman Empire. The project worked with a "sense of fear" theme.

The region is wet and cool, covered with snails. While in residence at the Cultural Exchange Station (CESTA), Diggs gathered and cleaned 200 snails; asked the other residents to write down their fears; and she transcribed those onto the shells of the snails. At the culminating event, the residents each took 2 snails to the wall, read the fears aloud, and put the snails on the wall. The snails continued to climb the wall for the next 2 years.