A Paper Bridge Crossing A Babbling Brook

“It stands up in the same way a stone bridge does. Paper is a really dense material […] it actually gets stronger when it rains.”This unique artwork, made especially for the landscape of northern England’s Lake District, was commissioned by Lakes Culture for Lakes Ignites. The one-dimensional rural beauty of the picturesque National Park is visually interrupted by thousands of paper layers, assembling a bridge. Countering the assumption that paper is unstable, Messam states: “It stands up in the same way a stone bridge does. Paper is a really dense material. We’ve been working on it for three years and I have had a scale model out in all weather and it actually gets stronger when it rains.”

Sustainability was a major point of consideration in the creation of the artwork, with each piece of paper used returned to Cropper James for recycling.