Me? PAGE 3?

One of the simplest ways to advertise any event to a large group of people if you are not massively 'tech-savvy', is through the social networking site, Facebook.
Having secured a great location and a date, I went ahead and produced an event page 'Lets Grow The Metro' which informed my friends and colleagues that my kooky idea was materialising and invited them all to come and take part.
Copy-paste the link below into your web browser to see the Facebook event:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=502412489&ref=profile#/event.php?eid=57900946796&ref=mf

FROM:

TO:

Unbeknownst to me, I had left the event 'public' which meant it was easily accessible to anyone on the whole of the global Facebook site. One weekend, I recieved a phone call from an unsaved number...

To cut a long story short, someone from The Metro Newspaper had stumbled upon my open event on Facebook by chance and wanted to run a story on it! I was interviewed over the phone and photographed in a local park looking very posed holding my MetGro pieces, smiling awkwardly whist sitting in wet soil and dog poo... it was all very surreal but I thought it would be a great way to attract publicity around London for my event. Talk about publically engaged work!

The Metro newspaper is read by over 4 million people a day! I knew I was bound to get some interest/feedback from this! I also thought that it might be worth scanning the article about my event and printing THAT on seed paper too, so it all becomes wonderfully cyclical... maybe I am getting carried away with wanting to print things on seed paper... hmm.

The article was published in the 10th year anniversary addition on 16th March 2009.

Here is the link to the article on their website:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?How_to_grow_your_own_Metro&in_article_id=581314&in_page_id=2&in_a_source=

A whole article about me!
On page 3... which amused friends and family for a good few days after it was published! As you can see, it is very staged and false... The cynical side of me says the Metro wanted to run it on this 10th year addition because it shows an ecologically-minded newspaper and reinforces their desire to see their paper recycled... If I had used any other newspaper, they would not have picked up on the story because really, it's free advertising for The Metro.
Still, it's funny how things turn out!

Location, Location, Location.

I can not tell you how happy I was that I had been allowed to use this wonderful space for my event.
Here are some images of the location:





There is a really perfect plinth-like concrete platform in the middle of the lawn as you can see. I thought it would be a great area to place a little greenhouse which would house the plants after the event!

I had four weeks from the date I had secured the area to the event date. During that time, I would need to advertise the event, produce professional looking posters, flyers, buy and assemble a greenhouse, make t-shirts for the barstaff to wear, think about how to present the event - on a stall/table? Where was I going to get soil from? And plant pots/vases?
How would I exhibit the Metgros to allow people to see them pre-event day?
I had lots to do to make the event worthy of such a great location...
Not to mention trying to please the cynical eyes of the advertising agency... I didn't realise how much I actually had riding on the success of this...
NO PRESSURE!

Where to hold the event?

I had grown really attached to my Metgro newspapers as I had invested so much time making them. However, the whole point of this project was to create an event which would allow my work to become more socially engaged.
However much money, time, sweat and tears I had invested in making my Metgro pieces, the plan had always been to tear them up and plant them to watch these urban-life metaphors grow into a wildflower garden.
With that in mind, I began to think about an appropriate location for my event.
I knew I wanted to engage with people in central London who experience the commute every day and whose lives the Metro newspaper is a daily part.
I did some research on the matter -

London Underground users can pick up a free morning newspaper called Metro. The publishers of the newspaper produce enough copies for 50% of Underground passengers - travelling between 6.30am and 9.30am - to read. The true genius of this enterprise is not the paper itself, but its delivery mechanism, which takes into account the following considerations: The distribution system relies on the basic human instinct to pick up any piece of paper with the word 'free' on it. Copies are placed in neat piles at the entrances of Underground stations so they can be picked up by people at the start of their journey into work. Any commuters who haven't picked up a copy of Metro by this point, will notice, the moment they get on a train, that everybody is reading it and they're seized by the desire to find out what is so interesting in a newspaper that everyone appears to be reading. Here the pure genius of the distribution system comes into play. The content of Metro is limited in such a way as to only supply enough interesting reading matter for 20 minute tube journey. As such the original owner of any copy of Metro, not assigning any value to it (as it was free) abandons it after 20 minutes or at the end of their journey. Whereupon the now insanely curious onlooker, in total disregard for normal social etiquette, will lunge across the carriage to grab the abandoned copy. By the end of the day, a relatively small number of copies of Metro have reached a massive number of the London population.

By the sounds of it, a LOT of Londoners who commute in the morning will encounter a Metro Newspaper, if not by picking one up from the station, then by grabbing 'an abandoned copy' along the way.
According to their website metro.co.uk they distribute 1,006,821 copies daily!
Perhaps the location for my event should not focus on the Metro itself, but on the concept of juxtaposing urban and rural imagery? What about an allotment a city farm or a city garden?

Come to think of it, the whole premise of this publically engaged idea stemmed from my work placement at JWT London which has an amazing grass covered roof terrace overlooking Harrods on Brompton Road, Knightsbridge. It would be a perfect place to hold my event...
The location would echo the urban v rural concept as it is an unusual garden-like area in the middle of an office building in London. It overlooks Knightsbridge tube station, one of the busiest in London; filled with people flocking to see the famous landmark, Harrods. It is surrounded by large office buildings, dwarfing the grass lawn, which is mowed weekly by a gardener who also tends to the other flower beds on the roof. I would also be engaging with the people who work in the building so this would provide a captive audience. All I needed to do would be to advertise the event within the building itself. The roof terrace is also connected to the canteen/bar area so the idea of planting a Metro news article could also be something of a novelty to do on a Friday night with a beer in-hand!

Before long, I had secured a meeting with the manager of the space and after a quick meeting to pitch my idea, I had permission to hold the event on the roof terrace!
I would be holding my Metgro event on the Friday 20th of March. This is for two reasons..
-Friday nights in the bar are the busiest in the week so my 'audience' would be greater, therefore encouraging more people to participate
-The 20th March is the day before the first day of Spring, signalling the end of winter, and the beginning of nature coming to life again.

Seed infused Metro newspapers

I had successfully printed my two Metro newspapers on to live wildflower seed-infused paper. I had laser-cut their deckled edges and assembled them in numerical order using the original newspapers as a guide.
Here are some images of my two finished 'MetGro' Newspapers!










As you can see, the MetGros look very thick - like hand made books. They were certainly more bulky than regular Metro newspapers because the seed paper was so heavy. Because of this, it was impossible to fold the paper down the centre and staple together.
It proved difficult working out how to bind the seedpaper together so that the final product looked as close to the original newspapers as possible.
Finally, I came up with a solution.
By glue binding the 'spines' of the seedpaper piles and then using the front page of the newspapers to wrap over the spines to create a smooth finish and to hide any unsightly glue, the pieces looked as newspaper-like as they could without being folded..



I really liked the way that the papers were 'ready-mades' with a twist. I had taken something so recognisable and by simply printing it on to different paper, the MetGros became important art objects; not to be cast aside once read on the tube, but to be exhibited and observed.
From start to finish, the process of making these two MetGros took approximately five weeks - to order and wait for the paper to be made; to scan each newspaper; to edit each scan and prepare for the printers; to digitally print each page; to laser-cut the seedpaper accurately; to assemble the pages and finally to glue bind them together. I had grown so attached to both pieces. Having worked so hard on them it was interesting that everyone who helped me along the way began to treat the pieces with care, delicately lifting the pages to read the articles and feel the seeds in the paper. It was as though I had suddenly given these free newspapers a greater value.

It seemed a shame to rip them up and put them in soil!
Oh well, on to Stage Two of the process... organising the METGROW EVENT!