Wednesday 16 January 2008

Newspaper House

I'm not a fan of free newspapers, though they're fine if they're genuinely local community papers keeping people in touch with community events. But these days most of them are just cheaply produced papers full of adverts and second rate journalism and most of them end up as litter. In London, tube passengers alone discard approximately nine-and-a-half tonnes of free newspapers a day.

So I was delighted to read about sculptor and installation artist Sumer Erek’s Newspaper House project. The installation will be made from newspapers brought by the members of the public over the course of one week. Erek will invite visitors to insert their own thoughts, observations, etc into the newspapers as they add them to the structure. The installation will be erected in Gillett Square, Hackney, London N16 8JH from 3rd - 9th March 2008. It sounds like a thought provoking piece of artwork, it will be great if it can raise awareness about waste and littering. Find out more here.

1 comment:

squirrelmama said...

What a delightfully clever use of newsprint. As someone who has worked in the newspaper publishing industry for 30+ years, and has begun to lament the slow death of the printed word, as it is eclipsed increasingly by online publishing, I praise the focus of this artist's work. Most free newspapers, sadly, do not truly represent community news and, sorry to say, sometimes the very same is true of publications that have paid circulation. But people need to see for themselves the kind of raw material that goes into printing a newspaper and then perhaps they can start demanding a more responsible use of our earth's resources! Bravo to this artist!

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