Notes to Strangers creating art from discarded items at Glastonbury
An artist is creating pieces from discarded items at Glastonbury Festival for fans to take home with them.
Andy Leek is behind Notes to Strangers, a public arts project in which he leaves colourful and positive messages around the UK.
The former advertising creative began leaving the notes in his home city of London about four years ago.
He now works on the project full-time, with an Instagram following of almost 120,000 and thousands of shares.
Notes include: “Be Yourself, It’s Easier”, “You Are Enough” and “Everyone Is Winging It”.
His attendance at Glastonbury Festival will see him create takeaway artworks from items that have been left.
“The theme of Shangri-La this year is all about reusing, recycling and delivering messages about the environment,” Leek said.
“I thought it would be interesting to challenge myself to improvise notes using materials I would find at the festival.”
He is heading to the Somerset site a few days before it officially opens on Wednesday to begin creating his notes.
Leek will bring only cable ties, screws, spray paint and pens as he believes there will be an “abundance of materials” left for him.
His pieces will begin in the Shangri-La area, but will probably spread across the 900-acre site.
Fans will be able to take the artworks home with them at the end of the festival.
“It depends on what size and scale I will be creating but I will be saying ‘feel free to take the work if you like it’,” Leek said.
“The aim would be to create something that will completely be takeaway. It is all up for grabs.”
Leek describes his work as messages on bright colours that are written to catch people “at a moment where the right combination of words” could have a positive effect on them.
“It can be anything from something quite deep to something quite frivolous to something quite positive to something that’s just there to make you think, to try to shake people out of the negative thought spirals that we all get into sometimes,” he said.