Cooling Towers Collectibles Co. (2008)

The Cooling Cooling Towers Collectibles Co. was a temporary souvenir shop produced in collaboration with Tom James. It was held in the Millennium Galleries in Sheffield to mark the demise of the Tinsley cooling towers next to the M1 at Meadowhall. The shop was funded by Arts Council England.

This story begins a little earlier as a campaign that came out of the fanzine GO, one that was began as a joke in the pub and swiftly escalated into an international design competition (with a €20 prize). We ran a competition in order to develop ideas that could reimagine the disused cooling towers as spaces for art in Sheffield, as Tate Modern turbine halls for the north if you like. We blagged our way into publicising it in various journals and ultimately all the way on the telly, as part of Channel 4’s Big Art Project.

The thing standing in the way was the council and E-On – the multinational power company that owned them – who were determined to demolish them as soon as they got wind of our plans, and momentum. They ultimately won and the towers were demolished in August 2008.