Hand-drawn reproductions of an edition of the Guardian which were mysteriously distributed across London on Monday – four years after the original was published – have been revealed to be the work of a south London artist.
On Tuesday, BuzzFeed reported that commuters had been handed copies at London Bridge station, and had come across them on the capital’s buses.
The Guardian has discovered the reproductions are the work of Peckham-based artist Charlotte Mann, 37.
Mann says about 3,000 copies were distributed, but she had not intended to publicise their origin.
Students from St Martin’s School of Art and the London College of Communication helped Mann distribute the copies, which also appeared at other tube stations and in cafes.
Mann says the copies were deliberately distributed without any explanation to make people wonder why they had been created.
She told the Guardian: “People are absolutely baffled as to why I did this, and that’s really exciting, because so much stuff in life exists in that category where you go ‘oh yeah got it, moving on, I understand’.
“If everyone has got something which is incredibly familiar, yet utterly baffling, then they have the chance of having a new thought for themselves.”
Mann used the edition of the Guardian published on the day her daughter was born.
The edition led with a statement from Muammar Gaddafi made during the uprising that saw his overthrow and eventual death.
The copies distributed on Monday come from a run of 5,000 produced in 2013 with funding from patrons Pauline and Matthew Bickerton. They were printed at the same Guardian News and Media-owned printing plant in Stratford where the newspaper has been printed since switching to a Berliner format in 2005.
She says while the copies were handed out exactly four years after the original edition was published, she only made the decision to distribute them two weeks ago.
Much of Mann’s work features similar drawn, life-size reproductions of 3D objects, such as bookshelves and art gallery walls.
She says the Guardian project is not about the date, the articles in the particular day’s newspaper, which newspaper she chose, or newspapers at all.
“I could have made a drawing of an ancient copy of the Koran,” she said. “If I did that it would have seemed to have loads of political religious implications. If I’d have made a copy of the Argos catalogue, it would have seemed to be self-consciously making a statement about consumerism or class.
“It almost could have been anything, but you’ve got to choose something specific and I love the way a newspaper is weirdly neutral and potent at the same time.”