{"id":328684,"date":"2025-08-08T19:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328684\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T19:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T19:44:09","slug":"why-artist-lucy-sparrow-made-a-fish-and-chip-shop-out-of-felt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/328684\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Artist Lucy Sparrow Made a Fish and Chip Shop Out of Felt"},"content":{"rendered":"

At first glance, it\u2019s a typical fish and chip shop. Signed portraits of celebrity regulars line the walls, and a packed counter displays battered cod, sausages, and mushy peas. \u201cThe Bourdon Street Chippy<\/a>\u201d offers everything you might expect from a traditional U.K. fried food purveyor, aside from the fact that all 65,000 items up for sale have been hand-crafted from felt by artist Lucy Sparrow<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This tactile reimagining of one of Britain\u2019s most iconic establishments takes place in London\u2019s Lyndsey Ingram<\/a>, situated across two rooms of the gallery through September 14th. The counter is where Sparrow herself will be busy every day until the show\u2019s close, serving her creations to paying customers who can take home a beaded pickle or smiley-faced piece of cod. \u201cWhat I do is endurance art,\u201d she told Artsy at the gallery. \u201cI lock myself away for 11 months to make, and then go through a gruelling period of being behind the counter every day, as you would in a real fish and chip shop. That is the performance.\u201d <\/p>\n

Anthropomorphized with black, beady eyes and painted smiles, Lucy Sparrow\u2019s felt creations are the stars of the show. \u201cI can still appreciate a big museum or a white cube space,\u201d she said, \u201cbut it has always been my intention for people to feel my art as much as look at it. And I soon realized that the interactions had when people visit are as much a part of the art as the pieces themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sparrow\u2019s first immersive installation, \u201cCornershop,\u201d opened to the public in 2014 in Bethnal Green in East London. Displaying 4,000 felt renditions of chocolate, soft drinks, and newspapers, the pop-up included everything you\u2019d see in a typical British convenience store. Over the past decade, her hand-crafted shops have cropped up globally. From a New York bagel store to a Bangkok street food cart, each installation is made entirely of felt and is more intricate than the last.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Bourdon Street Chippy\u201d\u2014the name of which is echoed on the branded tote bags, badges, and Sparrow\u2019s own serving cap and apron\u2014is a result of over five years of thought and three months of dedicated research. \u201cI went to thirty or forty chippies and took ideas from all of them,\u201d the artist said. She then put her own spin on her findings, intending to create an \u201camped-up, maximalist, multicolored version\u201d of the British staple. Lining the wall behind the counter are playful felt posters advising \u201cDo Not Feed the Seagulls\u201d and \u201cNo Smoking,\u201d alongside fake hygiene certificates and instructions on how to prevent food poisoning.<\/p>\n

Everybody in the U.K. grew up with a local chip shop, and the exhibition plays on the idea that people tend to recall the past as being far more idyllic than it was in reality. \u201cEverything seemed more technicolor, more fun, but also more simple back in the day,\u201d Sparrow said. The artist wanted to emphasize the feeling of nostalgia that comes with fish and chips by \u201cincorporating graphics that are basic and vintage, that have bright colors and solid patterns.\u201d <\/p>\n

Over the last decade, she said, items that have consistently proved the most popular are the ones that evoke a sentimentality. This may well be the same again this year, for against the windows at Lyndsey Ingram are shelves of instantly recognizable bottles, including Heinz Tomato Ketchup and Hellmann\u2019s Mayonnaise. Next to them is a lesser-known player; Sparrow partnered with Cornish Sea Salt Company for this exhibition. \u201cI aim to make the show as authentic as possible, and to do that I\u2019ll include all of the big brands. However, it\u2019s important to also platform smaller, British-owned companies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meticulous, labor-intensive nature of Sparrow\u2019s craft is a reflection, she thinks, of wider behaviors. In June, the artist revealed she\u2019d been battling anorexia since her teenage years. \u201cI know that I obsessively made art as a kid,\u201d she told Artsy. \u201cI obsessively did everything as a kid, which is unfortunately one of the horrible traits of anorexia. And I think that is so evident in the art that I make. When I was very ill as a teenager, I was so obsessed with food and thought about it night and day because I wasn\u2019t eating it.\u201d In recovery, her mindset has shifted. \u201cI know that I need to stay well to have the energy to make these things. It\u2019s almost like I owe the felt [creations]: They\u2019ve looked after me, and I now need to look after them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At first glance, it\u2019s a typical fish and chip shop. Signed portraits of celebrity regulars line the walls,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3939],"tags":[74614,4021,4020,4022,77,117000,118297,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-328684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-artist-profiles","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-lucy-sparrow","14":"tag-lyndsey-ingram","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114994864262003303","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}