Rekwear – 2002
With Tanya Meditzky
Stoke Newington Festival
London 2002
“Want to get an abandoned car towed away quickly? Then turn it into an art installation and wait for bosses at Hackney council to do the job three days early, ruining your exhibition in the process.
That is what happened to a group of artists who wanted to help educate the public about the growing number of wrecks being deposited on the country’s streets as a result of rising recycling costs and the falling value of scrap metal.
The idea was to create a series of designer “car covers” to turn the burnt out cars on Hackney’s street into works of art. Rachel Murrell, the project’s curator, told SocietyGuardian.co.uk: “The way to get rid of a car is to decorate it and make it pretty and then the council will move it.” Simon Parker, Society Guardian,
Press release
Artists Highlight abandoned car problem at Stoke Newington Festival 2002
Rekwear is a project that aims to explore the growing problem of burnt-out and abandoned cars that decorate the streets of Hackney and beyond.
Reflecting on today’s materialistic instincts, artists Maf’j Alvarez and Tanya Meditzky are using a humorous approach to discourage people from dumping cars. They have set up a spoof company called RekWear which creates designer car-covers to turn old cars into safe and desirable items of street furniture.
“We wanted to approach the subject with humour in order to engage people and to bring some colour and life to these motor corpses”, says Maf’j. “clearly we offer no real solutions to the problem, but we will have succeeded in our aim if we get people talking about the issue.”
Sunday the 16th June will see the bogus company demonstrating its range at the Stoke Newington Festival in Hackney, East London.
Situated aptly on the forecourt of Stoke Newington’s fire-station, the Rekwear demonstration illustrates the real hazards produced by newly burnt cars, and asks whose problem this really is.
An education programme is planned to accompany the project, with school children being encouraged to design their own car covers and to map out the wrecks in their own neighbourhoods. See the results at www.rekwear.com from mid-june.