Yesterdays paper makes great paper

Photographs of discarded newspapers, printed back onto paper made of the very papers discarded.

Every day , when it was too wet or cold to cycle to uni, I would go underground. Here, in the depths of the metropolis you are met with constant stimulation. Every inch of commercially viable wall space (sometimes even the floor) adorned with commercial fodder. Various brands and promises of lifestyles fighting for our mental space - our attention: as we often mindlessly try to get to our destination where even the air is commercialised. 

Another phenomena of this subterranean space is the ‘free news’ passed to you by tired looking workers who are used to not being seen (it astonishes me how the people who work in these liminal spaces respond to the smallest of niceties, as though they’ve never been seen for anything beyond what they’re offering/taking sometimes not knowing how to respond). Anyway, with our paper in hand full of curated words meant to drive the focus of a nation (owned by murdoch no doubt) we pile into our minds even more distractions.. before, suddenly: our stop. Up and off, the transit oft forgot unless something truelly extraordinary happened, someone acting out of the established norms or perhaps someone who you caught eye contact with who appeared out of the established norms too.

But what happened to your paper? Already yesterday’s news by the time they’ve left the printing press (if the words were ever relevant at all) they now exist discarded on the floor. Like sculptural pieces strewn over seats and flagstones - is this doing justice to the tree that was felled, sawed and pulped?

I began documenting these papers in their abandoned positions, then collecting them before eventually re-pulping them into new paper, then printing the photographs of the paper back onto the new paper made of the newspaper.