Category: Art
Cornershop-by-the-Sea by Lucy Sparrow of Sew Your Soul is an exhibition truly worth making a fuzz about. Lucy dedicated seven months to recreating the entire contents of a traditional British cornershop out of felt, in total making 4,000 felt versions of familiar grocery items by hand, by herself – everything from Alphabites and Anusol and Coco Pops to Canesten have been recreated in fabric, in signed, limited editions.
Back in February, No Walls director James Woodward was an early supporter of Lucy's Kickstarter campaign to raise the initial funding for her first Cornershop, opened in a derelict shop in Bethnal Green in August. Together they then hatched a plan to open Cornershop-by-the-Sea in Brighton, with the show opening on Friday night. James says of the show “When I first saw what Lucy was doing I thought it was one of the greatest things I'd ever seen. We met and Lucy blew me away with what she had planned for the project. To see it from those early planning stages, to Lucy then pulling it all together and creating what we now have installed in the gallery has been quite amazing.”
“It's rare for a show to have such a huge impact on the audience. We've had customers coming in wanting to buy scratch cards and lottery tickets and it takes a while for it to sink in that everything….. and I mean everything….. is made of felt. Cornershop-by-the-Sea makes you question your surroundings like nothing else I've seen, whilst at the same time leaving the audience with a huge smile on their faces…… it's pretty incredible.“
The majority of the contents of Cornershop-by-the-Sea have already sold, with much of it going into a major private collection and after Cornershop-by-the-Sea, the installation will be moved to it's new permanent home. Cornershop-by-the-Sea represents your last chance to see what has to be one of the exhibitions of the year and purchase some of Lucy's Cornershop goodies.
Opening times: Tues-Sat 12-7, Sun 12-5