Fiona Long Art

telephone box galleries

Originally uploaded by fionalongart.

Balloons: challenging the perception of space in the urban environment…and to make people smile!

I had a great time on Saturday. Nichol Keene, who also studies at Wimbledon College of Art, has devised the idea of making ephemoral exhibitions in London’s telephone boxes since they are such overlooked urban spaces. She accepted my proposal to fill one with balloons as a way of challenging this perception of urban space further and to make passers by smile with a bit of colourful frivolity. I like to help people to see their world’s in a different way…with the excitement of a child…and what better way to achieve it? Thanks to Nichol and her sister Danielle Keene, Adam Rutland and Eleni Young for helping to install it and for their help taking the questionnaires. With all that bounding enthusiasm, it was such a fun day!

The questionnaires we took of the passers by, asked if they thought the piece was art and how it made them feel. Although the result to the art question was mixed, I was pleased that most of them said that it made them feel happy. Just what I had hoped! It was great to see people notice it and smile. Loads of people took photos. At one point it looked like a vodaphone advert with a whole bank of mobile phone photographers on the other side of the road.

Thanks to all who helped on the day and to everyone who stopped, smiled and talked to us!