THIS YEAR’S LEAP DAY inspires a new social media led collaborative art project, which will create ‘One Off’: a photography exhibition at Northern Quarter gift shop Incognito’s gallery space, launching on the day itself, 29 February 2012.
Manchester lovers of Instagram, the hugely popular iPhone photography app, (seven million users worldwide), are invited to take part in a picture competition with the theme ‘One Off’, which has 40 entries so far including images of everything from secret gigs to beaches to climbing walls (example entries and back stories attached).
Entrants simply take a picture with the iPhone app, tag it with the hashtag #oneoff and submit through instameetMCR.co.uk before 29 February. 18 of the best entries will be chosen to be enlarged, printed and displayed as part of the exhibition.
One place in the exhibition will go to a ‘people’s choice’ image, judged as the entry with the most ‘Likes’ on the iPhone app and friendly competition encouraged as entrants campaign for their own images, sharing via Twitter and Facebook.
The overall winning images will decided by the crowd at the launch night (6-8pm) and there are a bunch of prizes on offer for the victorious including goodies from Incognito and Instagoodies – the USA based company who allow you to create sticker books and other physical goods with your Instagram pictures.
The competition and exhibition is being organised by four of the City’s Instagram lovers Kate Towey (@katiemaymanc), James G Brown(@james_g_brown), Gina Hewitt (@miss_mmm) and Fiona McGarva (@fionamcgarva).
James said “Manchester has an ever increasing number of people who love Instagram and we hope to see them getting involved and coming down on the night to pick their winners and meet other Instagram geeks.instameetMCR.co.uk is now live and taking entries.
The exhibition will run from February 29th to March 14th.
Entries so far:
Gareth Wood
“Reaching the top of this was a big deal for me, i’m chronically scared of heights and even though I love bouldering, every time I try rope climbing I usually freeze about 8/9 foot above the ground. This Silo is 16 Metres high and despite of my swearing and freezing up on it a couple of times I made it up to the top eventually. My friends pushed me and encouraged me all the way and I couldn’t have done it without them. It’s definitely a #oneoff I’m not going to be forgetting anytime soon.”
Ray Mosley
“So my one off was the night I was lucky enough to get last minute tickets to the elbow gig at Manchester cathedral for Radio 2. Was a pretty special gig in an amazing venue that only a few hundred could share, very lucky and a total one off.”
Simon Misra (@simonmisra)
“My photo is called ‘One off the kerb’. I’ve always loved the fact that I can walk from one side of Manchester city centre to the other, a sprawling, vibrant walk from Deansgate to Oxford road encompassing everything in between!”
Martin GASHcollective (@ciderspiller)
“This was a one off moment. By the time I had looked up from checking this image on my phone’s screen, The rainbow had gone and the clouds had completely changed. It was taken on a very windy and wet day, Walking alone on New Brighton beach, New Zealand.
