"For me, I am an optimist.
There does not seem to be much use being anything else."
Sir Winston Churchill 1954
There does not seem to be much use being anything else."
Sir Winston Churchill 1954
The idea of printing Metro Newspapers on to seed-infused paper came to me in early January 2009. During October and November 2008, I interned for seven weeks with the creative department of RMG Connect in Knightsbridge, part of JWT London.
During that time, my partner and I were introduced to a non-for-profit organisation called 'Go Green' which encourages inhabitants of Hackney who do not have access to a garden, to grow their own fruit and vegetables using any domestic appliance as a make-shift plant pot:
'No Garden, No excuse.'
After some thinking, I began to look into infusing clothes, CD's, and beauty products with fruit and vegetable seeds as a quirky way to encourage people to become involved with this charity.
I had a vision of creating a whole house made entirely of things which will grow if you plant them - even the house itself.
It would have been amazing to see the people of Hackney tearing up bits of sofa, TV, walls, bathtubs and burying them in the ground so that, over time, the house would grow into a crazy allotment...
I left the internship feeling elated about this idea and it really stuck with me. Would I be able to translate the concept of planting seed-infused domestic products into a fully resolved project that could be the conclusion of my three years in Art School?
I realised that through this advertising placement, I had discovered a really keen interest in socially engaged art. I wanted to create an event where people could come together to become a part of my work and the process, rather than pontificate about its final resting place in a dead white gallery.
Taking into account my last few painting's urban and rural language juxtapositions, I had the idea of printing Metro Newspapers on to indigenous wildflower seed paper. These two things reference the life I was used to whilst growing up in the Lake District , and the life I will have to become used to, whilst working in London in the future.
To me, wildflowers bring to mind meadows, summer, sun and freedom; they are 'wild' and have an amazing ability to pop up anywhere. Some may call them weeds, I call them inspiring.
They are inspiring in the sense that Nature is always around us in this hectic world in which we live, (even if we don't notice it whist crammed into a tube with 300 people at 8am) and life will always find a way to manifest itself in the most barren of places.
The Metro newspaper served as a metaphor for representing modern urban living - the stressful cramped commute into the city, the easy to read, bite-size news articles and this 'throw-away culture' which causes London's public transport to be littered with thousands of crumpled, disregarded newspapers on a daily basis.
I thought: Why not turn all of this bad news about the economy, global warming, gang culture etc into something more fulfilling?
So: Get back in touch with Nature, get your hands dirty, bury these ridiculous papers and watch them grow into your own little part of the English country-side.
LETS GROW THE METRO!
During that time, my partner and I were introduced to a non-for-profit organisation called 'Go Green' which encourages inhabitants of Hackney who do not have access to a garden, to grow their own fruit and vegetables using any domestic appliance as a make-shift plant pot:
'No Garden, No excuse.'
After some thinking, I began to look into infusing clothes, CD's, and beauty products with fruit and vegetable seeds as a quirky way to encourage people to become involved with this charity.
I had a vision of creating a whole house made entirely of things which will grow if you plant them - even the house itself.
It would have been amazing to see the people of Hackney tearing up bits of sofa, TV, walls, bathtubs and burying them in the ground so that, over time, the house would grow into a crazy allotment...
I left the internship feeling elated about this idea and it really stuck with me. Would I be able to translate the concept of planting seed-infused domestic products into a fully resolved project that could be the conclusion of my three years in Art School?
I realised that through this advertising placement, I had discovered a really keen interest in socially engaged art. I wanted to create an event where people could come together to become a part of my work and the process, rather than pontificate about its final resting place in a dead white gallery.
Taking into account my last few painting's urban and rural language juxtapositions, I had the idea of printing Metro Newspapers on to indigenous wildflower seed paper. These two things reference the life I was used to whilst growing up in the Lake District , and the life I will have to become used to, whilst working in London in the future.
To me, wildflowers bring to mind meadows, summer, sun and freedom; they are 'wild' and have an amazing ability to pop up anywhere. Some may call them weeds, I call them inspiring.
They are inspiring in the sense that Nature is always around us in this hectic world in which we live, (even if we don't notice it whist crammed into a tube with 300 people at 8am) and life will always find a way to manifest itself in the most barren of places.
The Metro newspaper served as a metaphor for representing modern urban living - the stressful cramped commute into the city, the easy to read, bite-size news articles and this 'throw-away culture' which causes London's public transport to be littered with thousands of crumpled, disregarded newspapers on a daily basis.
I thought: Why not turn all of this bad news about the economy, global warming, gang culture etc into something more fulfilling?
So: Get back in touch with Nature, get your hands dirty, bury these ridiculous papers and watch them grow into your own little part of the English country-side.
LETS GROW THE METRO!
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.......most interesting. YOu need to get birds to carry the bits of paper away and "plant" them in their nests...bird houses with flowers seriously cool.
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