Manchester-based creative studio DR.ME embarked on a year-long collage project on exactly this day last year, meaning they’ve come to the end of their journey. Mark Edwards, one half of the duo (Ryan Doyle forms the other 50%), explains how the idea formed and progressed with each unique work, and how it feels to be wrapping it all up.
At the time of writing, we’re on the last day of ‘365 Days of Collage’: a year long project, which, as the title suggests, has seen us create a one of a kind collage every day for a year.
The inspiration for the project came from staying at the apartment of collage artist Paolo Giardi whose works filled the walls from floor to ceiling. Inspired by the volume of work Paolo had created, we started a conversation about the immediate and spontaneous nature of collage. Over the years we have collected plan chests completely full of found material, so we had everything we needed to start the project. In an ever growing world of over-population of images in the digital age it was refreshing for us to think we would be creating physical objects that people could hold in their hands by repurposing found images. Once the person that bought each collage received theirs in the post, then that piece then belonged solely to them and (we would like to think) meant something to them in one way or another.
As a studio, collage has always been a medium that we were naturally drawn towards and utilized in some of our client based work, so we wanted to do something just for us and push ourselves to see how our work would stand up if we had to create a brand new piece on a daily basis. We also wanted to make it affordable so people who would necessarily not have bought art previously would now have an opportunity to purchase their own unique piece of artwork, so we set the price at £10.
Looking back, there’s been definite highs and lows in terms of inspiration. The lows normally coincided with the times when we also had big project deadlines or when we were out of the studio 4,318 miles away giving a talk at Art Basel in Miami. The highs have been going hunting for new source material or finding out where each collage ends up: one was even bought for a two-year-old’s birthday present. It was a heartwarming feeling thinking that he will grow up with and potentially keep the piece for the rest of his life. It has been incredibly rewarding seeing the vast majority of the collages sell to everyday people from around the world varying from friends to family, lovers to strangers, heroes to peers.
DR.ME will be celebrating the project at the studio in Islington Mill on 4th June ,6pm-9pm.
www.dr-me.com
