How we did it ... Newspaper recycling bid pioneers urban art form

Nicola Homer, Planning, 7 March 2008

Background: A public art project in Gillett Square, east London, where a car park has been transformed into a newly designated public space - the first of the mayor's 100 Public Spaces for London.

Who is behind it? Creative City in partnership with the London Borough of Hackney's cultural team, Gillett Squared and the Learning Trust, funded by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Arts Council England and UnLtd.

Project aims: To engage the wider community to reduce, reuse and recycle waste and encourage participation and inclusion in the arts.

Skills involved: Design, fund-raising, effective partnership development, knowledge of creative industries, event management and community engagement.

Handed out for free and read by commuters in a hurry, several tonnes of newspapers are discarded around London every day on tube seats, buses and park benches.

The sight caught the attention of Karen Janody, who developed the concept of collecting and reusing the papers to make a public art installation that would increase awareness of the social and ecological impact of this unnecessary waste.

Working with artist Sumer Erek and the Creative City organisation, Janody has been building a newspaper house. It is to be opened to the public this weekend in Gillett Square, east London. The project has attracted the enthusiastic support of the London Borough of Hackney and significant funding from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

"The Newspaper House came from a genuine look at an urban environmental issue and Erek has turned this into a stunning piece of public art that is both participatory and inclusive," explains Janody.

Erek laid the foundation timber shell with the help of Schenk Perfler Architects and structural engineers Arcdiam Associates. Built from sustainable sources, it acts as a holding structure for hundreds of tubular sticks made from sheets of newspaper, tied together to create rigid, matted walls.

The public has been encouraged to collect papers and bring them along to the square during the first week of March. They have been asked to write personal news on them, as a means of reconnecting with the value of the papers, before rolling them up to use as building material. "The project was inspired by our daily interaction with the city, our news and our waste, and it questions what we can do with it," says Erek.

Erek aims to involve people of all ages and backgrounds, enabling the development of creativity in the wider community. His vision is shared by Hackney's culture team, which intends to demonstrate how culture can work across boundaries, drawing attention to social agendas such as reduce-reuse-recycle.

"Projects such as the Newspaper House can act as a catalyst to engage the public with their environment and develop and encourage participation in the arts," says lead member for culture Nargis Khan.

In the run-up to the installation the team has supported a range of activities, including drop-in workshops at the Geffrye Museum, engaging schoolchildren and parents, debates on art and recycling, collecting discarded newspapers and building sessions for volunteers from Age Concern and the Arcola Theatre.

The Newspaper House will be the first art installation in Gillett Square, a newly designated public space. The former car park is the first in mayor Ken Livingstone's 100 Public Spaces for London and creates a founding block for the wider regeneration of east London for the 2012 Olympics.

Cabinet member for regeneration and the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games Guy Nicholson says: "Architecture and the spaces it creates profoundly influence our behaviour. Get the town square wrong and it can become an antisocial space. Get it right and it becomes a positive expression for the wider community."