It all started, as much creative ingenuity does, in Berlin in 2005 with artist Aisha Ronniger. As a counteractive response to police crackdown on street art, a friend of the artist suggested a guerilla style, high-volume distribution of art by way of merrily chucking it at people in the street, just like an “American paperboy.” The bicycle-clad network of cities signed up to the project is, thanks to some fast and furious blogging, weaving its wildfire way round the globe at a galloping pace, from Moldova to Cardiff, via San Francisco, Istanbul and dozens more.
The imperative of Papergirl is that the call for original artwork be 100% open to people from “all walks of life” and from anywhere in the world. The pieces are never judged nor discarded; the only stipulation is that they be no bigger than A2 and can be rolled (like a newspaper). After the host city has held a local exhibition of each and every one of the entries comes the fun part: enlisted delivery boys and girls, with their bicycles, are loaded up with as many rolls as they can carry and sent out into the streets to dole them out, like alternative Santa’s elves.
The universally transcendent nature of present giving is, says Ronniger, what has made Papergirl such a runaway success, with the surprise element the beauty of it since “you can’t buy luck.”
November 12
CALEIDOSCOPIO. C/ Nou de Sant Francesc, 5 (Barri Gòtic)
November 13 (distribution)
Email papergirlbcn@gmail.com for details on how to become a delivery boy/girl.
October 31, 2011
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