PROJECT 011: WILDFIRE (01.05.14 – 20.03.18)

Wildfire (01.05.14 – 20.03.18), 2018, A digitally-printed, 72-page newspaper containing four years’ worth of collected news stories about wildfires, 38 x 28.9 x 0.5 cm

I have been collecting ‘apocalyptic’ events out of the newspapers since 2014. I categorise these articles into different types of events and have started making them back into newspapers. My first newspaper focuses on wildfires and contains four years’ worth of collected news stories.

At a time when we are, arguably, closer to the ‘apocalypse’ then ever before; a time when climate change is affecting the world more obviously and more dramatically, I was interested in how much we can really understand from the news. Reports generally focus on specific events rather than the bigger picture, and disasters in some countries are prioritised over those in others. Are the events that feel the most apocalyptic really the ones we should be most worried about? Can individual newspaper reports, when collected together, signify something larger? Will the end of days be on the front page and celebrity-endorsed? Will I still be reading the newspaper on the day the world ends?

The articles were taken from The Metro and The Evening Standard during the dates specified in the title (01.05.14 – 20.03.18). Articles are ordered in reference to the placing and page number of the articles in the original newspapers. In this work I am tracking events. I hope to distill the fear that newspapers instill in us as well as looking at how the news is presented in contemporary Britain.