The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story! is an upcoming exhibition held on the lower ground floor of Selfridges. Converting Selfridges’ Ultralounge into a bunker-like workspace/den, it will be filled with paper inspired found and made objects, creating an environment reminiscent of a 1980’s pop video and suggesting the innocence of a bygone era. As well as being able to pick up a copy of The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story! magazine, visitors can stay and enjoy numerous interactive activities. These will include a drive-in style photo-story viewing booth, 1980’s makeovers, a dance floor, manual typewriters to try out, and photo opportunities. Visitors will also be able to talk to the artists - Andrea Blood and Zoë Sinclair – and the magazine contributors and even become involved in editorial meetings. The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story! will take place from 1 to 29 April.

The Photographers’ Gallery Press Release

The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story!

Exhibition Dates: 1 – 29 April 2010
Location: Ultralounge, lower ground floor, Selfridges Oxford Street, London W1
Admission: Free

In this second collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery and Selfridges, artist duo The Girls will transform the Ultralounge space, on Selfridges’ lower ground floor, into the working headquarters of The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story!, a photo-story magazine and multi-layered arts experience. The Girls - Andrea Blood and Zoë Sinclair – as artists-in-residence, will adopt the personas of Editors-in-Chief of the magazine, creating three issues comprising of photo-stories shot in and around Selfridges, featuring its staff and customers and reviving the fun of the photo-story genre.

Converting the Ultralounge into a bunker-like workspace/den, it will be filled with paper inspired found and made objects, creating an environment reminiscent of a 1980’s pop video and suggesting the innocence of a bygone era. As well as being able to pick up a copy of The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story!, visitors can stay and enjoy numerous interactive activities. These will include a drive-in style photo-story viewing booth, 1980’s makeovers, a dance floor, manual typewriters to try out, and photo opportunities. Visitors will also be able to talk to the artists and the magazine contributors and even become involved in editorial meetings.

Additionally The Girls will create, within the Ultralounge, a site-specific multi-coloured shrine to paper, printing presses and the traditional photographic printing process. Inspired by traditional Mexican home altars and their combinations of personalised ephemera and artifacts, visitors will be able to leave their own paper offering here. A selection from The Girl’s previous bodies of work will also be displayed, comprising of fourteen years of surreal self-portrait photography.

During the four-week residency three issues of The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story! will be produced on the themes of the ‘supernatural’, ‘transformation’ and ‘mistaken identity’, popular topics in the photo-story magazines of the 1980s. Each issue will be compiled using traditional cut and paste techniques typical to the photo-story. Guests from the worlds of art and fashion will be invited to join the eclectic team of contributors and the magazine will be available online where the progress of the project can be followed via a blog and podcasts. A limited edition collectable box, signed and individually numbered by the artists, will be produced to preserve all three magazines, along with other ephemera commemorating the project.

The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story! pays homage to paper, commenting on its current decline, in terms of traditional printing methods, in books, newspapers, magazines and photographic paper. The entire look and feel of the project and the magazine will be a defiant stand against contemporary digitized methods, encapsulating a punk DIY aesthetic.

The Girls are re-emerging British artists Andrea Blood (b.1975, UK) and Zoë Sinclair (b.1976, UK), whose collaboration began in 1996 at Central Saint Martins, after meeting at school in Dorset aged 16. After a seven-year hiatus, The Girls began making new work in 2006. Their practice focuses on creating private staged tableaux, which are recorded as self-portrait photography or video, as well as performance art. The themes explored within their work include Englishness, childhood, gender, women’s relationship with food, obsession and eroticism.

The Paper Eaters: Long Live the Photo-Story! is the second collaboration between The Photographers’ Gallery and Selfridges following on from the success of 2008’s Exactitudes project. It reflects The Photographers’ Gallery’s commitment to introducing photography to as wide an audience as possible beyond the confines of the gallery wall.

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