Found this little guy by the turnstiles at Leeds College of Art, upon its back was written "Found a frog? Facebook.com/sadfrogproject" and on the bottom his name, "Frank."
About this project (as stated on their Facebook page)
Here is a quirky little project about a Sad Frog, the
purpose is to spread some amusement and also to test the capability of social
media.
A few years ago in a charity shop in Leeds, a little Sad Frog ornament was homeless. I fell for it's pathetic and miserable little face and had to give it a home. Since then, I've been thinking and dreaming about this project.
The Sad Frog project has now begun and I have created 100 unique Sad Frogs (from a mould of the original frog). Each Sad Frog has it's name written on the bottom of it, and the link to this page on it's back.
Me and my distributing team have left 100 Sad Frogs in public places (mostly in the Yorkshire area).
The idea is that anybody who finds a frog should photograph themselves with it, post the photo to this wall with the name of the frog (which is written underneath it) and mention where you've found it. Then, the finder moves the Sad Frog to a new location for somebody else to find. Ensure that the place is safe (so that the frog won't fall and smash) and I would prefer frogs not to be left in shops.
Lets see how far each frog can travel and how many people will play the game and photograph themselves with each Frog and post it here.
__________________________________________________________
Of course I had to join in, here is a photo of me with Frank...
I know little about the artist who created this project, but what I do know is that their aim is to use this little sad frog as a way of bringing joy to people who find them, encourage people to participate in the process of the work by taking a photograph of themselves with the found frog and furthermore document the effects through social media, in this case Facebook to be exact.
By using Facebook, they are able to create a project page to state their aim, post regular and instant updates to people following the project, allow people to post up their own photographs with the frogs and keep all the documentation of the progress in one place. Not only this, Facebook is a worldwide form of social media which helps, especially as these frogs will be travelling.
This is a bit like an extension of an idea I had to document my Overheard Conversation pieces using social networks, mainly twitter as it uses short sentences, usually quote like in the way they are presented. These can then be instantly collected, reposted and spread to a wider audience. I need to research more into this and also expand by either creating a page or hashtag system for people to be able to send them.
Oh and did I mention 2 minutes later I found a unicorn in the elevator...
