Big 4
Stephanie Imbeau, who graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Newcastle University in 2007, has won the competition to become the fourth artist to put their unique stamp on the huge ‘4’ logo installation outside Channel 4’s Horseferry Road headquarters. Run by Channel 4 and the Saatchi Gallery, the competition was for recent fine-arts graduates registered with Saatchi Online galleries, which are open to all.
Stephanie’s idea involved covering the Big 4 with a blanket of more than 1000 umbrellas. ‘Not only would this give the umbrellas a chance to be appreciated for their aesthetic appeal,’ Stephanie wrote in her proposal, ‘but it would have a transformative effect on the steel structure, softening it and making it almost plant-like.’
‘Stephanie impressed everyone with her witty, playful, fun idea,’ says Jan Younghusband, Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor for Arts and Performance. ‘Of the many strong contenders, hers was voted unanimously the best by our illustrious panel of art experts.’
Stephanie Imbeau's Shelter, reflected in the window of Channel 4’s headquarters in Horseferry Road, London.
More images in the Big 4 gallery »
Most of the umbrellas came from London Transport’s lost-and-found store. ‘Using broken umbrellas can also be seen as the re-telling of a story, the giving of second life,’ Stephanie explains. ‘The umbrellas are a visual representation of London and its many inhabitants.’ The installation, called Shelter, was constructed by the specialist Brighton-based company millimetre, who used wire mesh sections to attach the umbrellas.
The 50-foot-high metal '4' was originally constructed in 2007 to celebrate both the channel's 25th anniversary year and the launch of the Big Art Project. The installation mirrors the channel's on-air identity, with metal bars forming the logo only when viewed from a particular angle.
Stephanie Imbeau's website is at www.stephanieimbeau.com.
The Big 4 has previously been adapted by the acclaimed British photographer Nick Knight and Turner Prize nominee Mark Titchner. Nick Knight's work, Heart, with sound design by Nick Ryan, involved biconvex screens carrying images of skin and musculature, giving the impression that the structure was gently breathing as you moved around it. Mark Titchner's work, Find Our World in Yours, allowed the public to record their own thoughts and feelings about the media, with edited footage played back on video monitors mounted on the structure. The third version of the Big 4, by the Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui, involved the use of newspapers and printing plates, suggesting the ephemerality of the vast quantity of information we have to process and our longing for time to review and digest.
The artists were all chosen by a panel including Jan Younghusband (Commissioning Editor, Arts and Performance, Channel 4); Brett Foraker (Network Creative Director, Channel 4); Gus Casely-Hayford (formally Executive Director, Arts Strategy, Arts Council); Michael Morris (Co-Director, Art Angel); Will Gompertz (Director, Tate Media); and Tim Marlow (Director of Exhibitions, White Cube Gallery).
