Plastor Boxes at the Tate Modern

Over the May bank holiday weekend (22nd-25th May 2015) Plastor, leading Berkshire based distributor of industrial strength plastic containers and storage equipment will have an important part to play in one of the world’s most visited art galleries. Offprint London, is a free art and photography publishing fair which will be held at the Tate Modern. Offprint London dedicates a special place for photobooks, inviting independent photobook publishers from all over the world. As part of the showcase, ‘Self Publish, Be Happy’ (SPBH), an organisation that collects, studies and celebrates self-published photobooks will occupy approximately 100sqm of project space within the Tate Modern’s magnificent Turbine Hall. SPBH founder, Mr Bruno Ceschel contacted Plastor because the architects responsible for the space design had a smart and creative idea, which primarily included stackable plastic boxes. Plastor’s marketing manager, Mr Neil Harris was intrigued by the left-field opportunity and invited Bruno to Plastor’s headquarters in Maidenhead, Berkshire to see a range of boxes and discuss the event in more detail. The design of the SPBH installation has been created by 2 celebrated architects Ana Varela and Phillipe-Albert Lefebvre. They loved Plastor’s stackable plastic boxes and wanted to use them to build the SPBH space. The architects wanted to capture the ‘Self Publishing, Be Happy’ do-it-yourself ethos, utilising the boxes as building material for furniture and architectural elements, such as large impacting walls and tables. The space is designed entirely of readymade materials, with 300 large stackable plastic containers forming the walls; a fun and ‘polyfunctional’ environment. The reason why Plastor’s boxes were loved so much is because of their multiple uses - they can be reused to carry, store and transport books and artwork. As a material it made perfect sense in the context of a fair that celebrated books, and indeed made even more sense for the organisation that was founded upon a very DIY spirit. On understanding that the Tate Modern (London, Southbank) is the 6th most visited art museum in the world it was too tempting for the marketing manager to ignore, it was quite simply a once in a lifetime opportunity for the company. The Tate Gallery is also a regular customer of Plastor’s which added interest to the intrigue. In fact, when Bruno first contacted Plastor it was initially believed that it was a general sales enquiry by the Tate, which certainly helped Mr Ceschel in his approach. Neil Harris comments, “If we ever make donations they’re always towards charitable situations, just recently we donated a generous batch of large metre long crates to the Emergency Response Team based at Henley Business School, for transporting medical equipment to Nepal due to the disastrous earthquake. In all honesty donations are rare because giving products away isn’t ‘great’ for business however sometimes you need to give a little back and support certain organisations if you can. We’re also Trussell Trust partners and support Foodbanks within the organisation by offering discounted pricing. However, when a non-charitable request for donating boxes arises they’re 99% not going to materialise further than the initial enquiry, but this was different. Sure, there’s PR opportunity, we will be thanked on printed materials produced for the event and have links to our website via social media but there’s also something else many companies will never have the chance to say – our products were used as an impacting centre piece at the Tate Modern. With all this in mind Plastor’s Managing Director John Yates and I agreed to support Bruno’s Self Publishing, Be Happy organisation by donating the 300 stacking boxes (600x400x320mm each in size) in a mixture of red and blue colours. We cannot wait to see our boxes in action at such an amazing gallery”. The event is open to the general public from the 22nd to 25th of May 2015 at the Tate Modern, London and hosted inside the gallery’s famous Turbine Hall. 30,000 visitors are anticipated over the four days and admission is free. For more information please contact Neil Harris, Marketing Manager at Plastor on 01628 829800 or via Plastor’s contact page on the company website www.plastor.co.uk For the event’s Facebook page, please visit: https://www.facebook.com/events/618963811572640/

For more information on Plastor Boxes at the Tate Modern talk to Plastor Ltd