Collecting growing exciting

The Newspaper House is an interactive public installation making use of the free discarded newspapers found scattered in and around London.




Artist Sumer Erek will build a “house” of newspapers. The public will be encouraged to collect newspapers they find lying around on the tube, bus, streets, public spaces, in their homes and bring them on location. Sumer Erek will lead the public to follow his instructions: including their personal news within the newspaper, rolling and adding it to the structure, hence contributing to building the house.


/// Newspaper House, Gillett Square, London Dalston
March 3 – 10, 2008


The Newspaper House will move into St Barnabas Hall on Jan 20th to start storing and compiling materials to build the installation on Gillett Square.

On March 3, 2008, the Newspaper House will move to Gillett Square, where everyday added newspapers will grow the installation.

The final piece will be unveiled on 8 March 2008 and will remain untouched till 9 March 2008. What will happen to the House will depend on how many people, members of the public, travelers, companies came to Gillett Square with newspapers.

We need 120,000 newspapers !!!







Thus far, the Newspaper House has received tremendous positive feedback, being described as an ‘innovative and imaginative response to a local environmental issue’. The Newspaper House is a project developed by Creative City in collaboration with Hackney Council and Gillett Squared. Hackney Council's Culture Team has played a key role in getting the project off the ground. Its involvement demonstrates Hackney's aspirations to increase access to, and participation of the arts for all its communities. The project has received funding from Hackney Council,Arts Council England & UNltd.

"Hackney is the home of a dynamic and prolific visual arts sector and we are proud to support its continued development. Hackney's Culture Team is delighted to be a partner in the Newspaper House. This innovative project will be the first temporary art installation in the public realm in Gillett Square. It's strong environmental message will engage Hackney's communities in the 'reduce-reuse-recycle' debate."
Kim Wright, Council Corporate Director, Community Services.

The partnerships developed by and around the project make the art, public art, education and the community culminate into what aims to be a reference first class collaborative installation. A combination of the public and the private, environmentally lead Art and public art with a social conscience, implementing change in resources and habits.
















/// The concept


NewsPaperHouse concept breaks down into:: News / Paper / House.

News ::
In entering the 21st century, we have moved further away from the “paper” era and further into a pan-global digital age, where news is not local any longer but available within seconds across the world. This results in an apocalyptic urgency that readers feel alarmed by, but totally disconnected from.
± Members of the public who attend will subvert “the news” by inserting their own personal, private news (observations, secrets, questions, thoughts and so on) into the newspaper before adding it to the structure. The public symbolically regains some connection with the newspaper. The action becomes theirs, the installation contains their contribution, the message acts as a carrier for the added sense of citizenship.

Paper ::
We all believed that moving into the digital era would diminish the use of paper. On the contrary, there seems to be a resurgence of printed material and newspapers, much of it free and everywhere - yet we don't think much about where paper comes from and where it goes after we've used it..
± Paper is a typically domestic and commercial waste material. The piece returns paper to its origin: wood. The newspaper rolls into a lock, which takes the shape of a branch and trunk. News items become the thread of life and grains of the wood.

House ::
Newspapers pile up in our houses, lie on the streets and on public transport. The issue is not likely to disappear ; we must find creative ways to deal with it. We are urged to consume without thinking about how to discard. The first step is inviting people to think about and value the material itself, and to consider the issue of “waste”. Too much discussion of waste and environment is delivered in apocalyptic terms, which alienates people and does not engage them creatively. Bringing it back “home” to the familiarity of “the house” and the idea that “the city is your home” should inject some fun into the issue and at the same time unleash public creativity.
± the house will fill from within, filling up with newspapers (rolled-up) to create an installation. The more newspapers the public brings, the more it fills and shapes the house, the less personal space is available inside.




/// The future is bright!


The Newspaper House aims to travel across London, the UK and internationally.... tbcontinued




/// Contacts


Info, partnerships & booking, contact ::

Karen Janody karen[at]creative-city.co.uk


Press & PR, contact::

Gillian Burton press[at]creative-city.co.uk


Corporate & creative opportunities, contact ::

Sarah Allen sarah[at]commissioner.org.uk


Documentary, contact ::

Gillian McIver gillian[at]creative-city.co.uk

The Newspaper House is building ahead

Project details ::

The Newspaper House is an interactive public installation making use of the free newspapers found scattered in and around London. The house will be sited and erected in Gillett Square, Hackney’s new, urban public space, to provide wide access to the public in an area which does not have significant visual art provision.


Concept ::

The theme of the project is “the city is our home” and the project encourages people to think about how to keep our “house” clean, attractive and liveable. The topic is a current news item as London has problems with the large quantities of free newspapers that clutter and dirty our streets and public transport. Thinking about the way we live is not a trend for the privileged, it is essential that every member of the public starts looking after their own house, their environment, the world they are creating for their children.

This will open the “reduce-reuse-recycle” debate as well as make our voices heard about making the city – our city - clean and liveable.


Artistic Team ::

Sumer Erek is the lead artist and has extensive experience of producing large-scale public art works. Karen Janody will be leading on the artistic project management and has produced visual arts projects extensively in Liverpool and London. Curator Gillian McIver, who is the founder of international art collective Luna-Nera, has been critical to the concept development.


Gillett Square ::

The artists will be collaborating with the Gillett Squared team who hold the public entertainment license for the square. The director of Hackney Co-operative Developments Adam Hart will direct this activity as the named license holder. The production management will be led by Emma Jones, who specialises in delivering large-scale outdoor art installations and participatory projects. Hackney Cultural Partnerships Officer Sandra Collins is strongly backing the project now adding to the determination of making this happen in March 2008.



Participation ::

The house can’t be built without local people gathering newspaper and white paper waste to make the blocks of the building, furniture and decorations. Sumer and the team in collaboration with paper manufacturing experts The Paper Trail will facilitate a series of workshops in primary and secondary schools as well as in key cultural venues such as the Geoffrye and Hackney Museums.

Further outreach will also be conducted with organisations such as Age Concern who Gillett Squared have involved previously in projects on the square, and via the extensive network of local organisations who are all regularly consulted about the use of the square for the benefit of local people and businesses. During the week of the installation there will also be further opportunities for people to make objects on site.

Demographic breakdown ::

We expect our predicted audience to attend for two hours on average:
. 60% local inhabitants 40% visitors
. A mixed audience, 2,000 individuals, giving the whole experience a community feel
. Across socio-cultural backgrounds and ethnicities
. Across generations
. Culturally active and inactive
. Museum goers, travelers, young people, families
. Recycling conscious groups and individuals
. Living and visiting London and highly likely to be shopping in Dalston, Hackney and East London.


Partners ::

· Gillett Squared Partnership = Hackney Co-operative Developments, Vortex Jazz Club, East London Design Show (GSP)http://www.hced.co.uk/
· UNltd http://www.unltd.org.uk/
· The Paper Trail http://www.thepapertrail.org.uk/
· Hackney Cultural Team
· Learning Trust (Hackney)


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Media Plan ::

· Press pack to local, regional, national, general & specialised press
· Communication of the project via partner organisations’ newsletters
· Website and presence on all important online social networks
· A 4 page full colour A5 brochure distributed at the house, containing information on the events programme, raise awareness of partners & the environmental cause (no street distribution, to avoid un-necessary litter!)
· Word of mouth with the help of communication partners
· A Viral email campaign & competition of photographic or video evidence of the best recycling efforts. The best evidence will be shown on a screen in the house.
· A competition to win a trip to The Paper Trail to the school and business that brought the most recyclable paper
· Hackney Recycling, North London Recycling and Tower Hamlet Recycling to publicise to London schools and youth groups.
· Local schools to include the Newspaper House in their curriculum
· Amanda Birch of Building Design has committed to a feature in the February or March edition.

Action Plan::

· Stage 1: Planning the house
· Stage 2: Planning the participation
· Stage 3: Making the world aware
· Stage 4: Building the house // full video & photography documentation
· Stage 5: Evaluation & planning further

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The London Environment ::

London only recycles 20% of its waste in comparison with the rest of the UK, which averages at 25%. Recycling has improved 50% since 2003, and 145% since 2000, which shows a real sense of awareness of the need to deal with waste and litter.

In 2005-06, paper made 25% of all household and commercial waste!

We expect this figure to have dramatically changed with the recent arrival of London’s free newspapers [London Paper & the Lite]. In the couple months, Westminster Council has made several attempts to tackle the waste chaos caused by these publications. To avoid a total ban, the newspapers were imposed to collect their prints within 100m of their distribution. Yet, the streets are still covered with newspapers. Travelers find themselves walking on newspaper on the bus, tube and on the trains. Newspapers fly in the wind, out of bins, and clutter the streets.

The Newspaper House proposes to tackle the extra waste with a fun, witty non-moralistic alternative to a growingly serious social issue.

We aim to tackle the extra waste via newspapers in an imaginative way while setting up the essential procedure to recycling this extra waste = turn it into a by-product.
As this is a subject so close to people, TFL and councils alike, we are expecting it to be a press magnet in the art, architecture and construction press and packed!

Dates ::

March 3rd – 10th Gillett Square, Hackney
April - May 2008 Trafalgar Square, Westminster (TBC)

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Your support would ::

· Help grow to a stylish, topical, fun and ethically good project
. Contribute to developing the cultural fabric of Dalston, East London & London,
. Help suggest ways to make quick and significant impacts on social behaviours as regards to waste & litter management and a more conscious of their living environment.


Company Endorsements ::

· Highly visible brand name or logo stylistically incorporated within the design of the external and internal walls of the installation (main cash sponsor)
· Name mention at the Newspaper House speech
· Name mention in the press & related articles
We expect the project to be a press magnet, and trackable in the local, regional, national specialist and general media
· Logo on promotional material (brochure, website, press releases, marketing pack)
· Name and logo on newsletters sent via all partner organisations
· Name and logo on the personal invitation send to all the movers and shakers of the public arts, participation and environment worlds.
A brochure will contain information of events in & around the House, future plans, information on sponsors and partners, basic facts and easy ways to make a difference.

It is a huge challenge building a house and inviting the public to participate, however, it is exactly this type of work which makes London the very special place it is, rich in diverse cultures and ideas.

Newspaper House, outline

The Newspaper House is an interactive public installation making use of the free newspapers found scattered in and around London. The house will be erected in a public square of London to provide wide access to the public.

Members of the public will bring the newspapers they find lying around on the tube, bus, streets, public spaces, and in their homes to add to the structure, building the house.

The more newspapers the public bring, the higher, the bigger the “house”, and the more features it could have.

The house i s scheduled to be built in Hackney's Gillett Square from October 8th to 14th, and is currently looking for partners and supporters.

The house could (to be negotiated) include other recyclable collectables: i.e. plastic bottles that are used in housing material. We will also use the project to introduce discussion of the uses of this discarded material, e.g. noting that paper and newspaper is an excellent insulation materials for walls.

The House will be a centre of activity, from public interaction to live performances by different artists who would perform in the house.

The topic is a current news item as Westminster Council is looking for ways to deal with the large quantities of free newspapers that clutter and dirty our streets and public transport. The large amount at the end of each day raises the issue of recycling as well as littering, and our project aims to bring the public to realise the simplicity of turning a thought into action.

Thinking about the way we live is not a trend for the privileged, it is essential that every member of the public starts looking after their own house, environment, the world they are creating for their children. Good habits are a learned behaviour.

The theme of the project is “the city is our home” and we will “clean” the city and organise our “house” into something attractive and livable.

The project is interactive, large scale, playful, informative, educational, conceptual, exciting, and receiving interest every time it is mentioned.

Seeing the large crowds that manifested themselves around the coming of the Sultan's Elephant to Westminster in May 2006, or Olafur Eliasson's Sun in the Tate Modern in 2004, we expect that a public-art project that combines art with social interaction and social community, backed by a strong concept, a tight press campaign and the support of selected partners, will spark instant positive response.


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The Newspaper House will reach out to

• Travellers on London public transport
• Families
• School children
• People of all ages and backgrounds
• Professionals at all levels
• London inhabitants
• Passers-by and tourists
• Artists, art students, students

The project aims to last a few days and grow daily, bringing more and more people as the word passes. We would welcome any number from 1,000 people to 100,000 to come and take photographs, and/or participate, and benefit from the project itself.

Depending on the project location, the amount of guaranteed audience will vary.


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News paper house concept, creation & realisation: Sumer Erek, artist

Sumer Erek is a conceptual creator of high artistic integrity. He has extensive experience in interactive public art installation from previous projects, the likes of 'UpSide Down House' that was exhibited in London, Liverpool and Glasgow. The 'UpSide Down' House is an ongoing project, which aims to travel to the Republic of Cyprus, with a view to take it to destinations worldwide including the Istanbul Biennial.

Sumer Erek both is simultaneously developing the ‘Raw Earth Project’. Information can be found on
www.rawearthproject.com
www.sumererek.com

Conceptual realisation & documentation: Gillian McIver

Gillian McIver is a curator, writer and documenter of site specific art. She is frequently invited to talk at events and conferences on site specific art, from Oxford University to Canada and Russia. She is the founder of the international art collective Luna-Nera. As an academic teacher, writer and practising artist and curator, Gillian McIver will help the
Newspaper House become a meaningful project. She will also supervise the comprehensive documentation of the project.
www.luna-nera.com
www.artsite.org.uk

Project management & elaboration: Karen Janody

Karen Janody is the soul of sleepless nights when she gets her teeth stuck in a project she likes. The Newspaper house is one of them! Coordinating a film festival, and numerous exhibitions, events and artists brought Karen from Liverpool to London where she has been freelance working on the management team of an internationally renowned music act, and cultural projects.

All individuals have worked with each other and together in the past, and the three will make an excellent team to take this project to the heights it deserves.


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Contact Karen Janody on 07 989 954 414 kjanody@gmail.com for information