Helen Kaplinsky is an Artist and Curator based in London

Pain(t)ing by Numbers, Blackdogs Art Collective, Steve Allbutt and Helen Kaplinsky,
Ilkley Moor Festival, August 2005

Black Dogs were invited to provide entertainment for the annual festival on Ilkley Moor. Audience participation and the relationship between work and play were the central themes. The Black Dogs ran a three-part interactive event-cum-workshop during the festival.

First, members of the public were invited to destroy an image of a call centre in the manner of a coconut shy. Having broken down the clay tiles of the image, the remains were then ground into paint and used to colour in a vast paint-by-numbers image of a ferris wheel.

Setting up the call centre image

Destroying the call centre; the tiles were ground into paint for the paint-by-numbers image

 The completed paint-by-number image