The Newspaper House
March 4th - March 9th 2008
On March 8th, sculptor and installation artist Sumer Erek unveiled a (5m x 3m) ‘House’ in Gillett Square, London - constructed out of newspapers brought by members of the public. Visitors inserted their own observations, secrets, etc into the newspapers and add them to the structure. In this way, the public connects with the Newspaper House; their action is a contribution to the building of a public project.
London has a growing problem with the large quantities of free newspapers that clutter our streets and public transport. Tube passengers alone discard approximately nine-and-a-half tonnes of freesheet newspapers a day. This is a lot of paper. What can we do about it? Sumer and the Creative City team have come up with an ingenious solution.
The Newspaper House as an interactive public artwork is an opportunity to invite the public to participate and actually be involved in creating an artwork. Over the period the house was being created and displayed, thousands of people turned up: to look, to contribute papers, time and energy, and to support the pricinciples of recycling, conservation and innovation.
The theme of the project is “the city is our home”, and as well as being an art work in its own right - exploring a variety of themes around the concept of "house" and the materiality of paper, the notion of waste and value - the project also encourages people to think about protecting and improving the environment, so that we can enjoy a cleaner, healthier world. It also encourages a sense of belonging to their neighbourhood, and a wish of all to make their own neighbourhood a pleasant place to live in.
The project is a partnership between Creative City, Sumer Erek and Gillett Squared and was funded by the London Borough of Hackney, HCD, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the Arts Council Big Lottery fund, the Learning Trust and UnLtd. Project support provided by Project Freesheet, Metronet Rail, Rio Cinema and Nature2Art.
Photos by Nazir Tanbouli (top) and George Torode (bottom)
Gillett Squared is the management group led by Hackney Co-operative Developments for arts and enterprise projects on Gillett Square.
