Giant 3D hand sculptures made entirely from 35,000 handmade paper cubes

The creative studio, founded by designer and artist Sam Robins, was commissioned by Selfridges to create the large-scale installation for its Manchester Exchange Square store as part of its Bright New Things sustainability initiative.

Working to a brief developed by Modern Designers, Sam was asked to produce something unique and original in partnership with The Whitworth art gallery and James Cropper – the 170 year old British paper manufacturer, known for its immoveable commitment to sustainable production.

Speaking of the project, Sam said: "We wanted to focus on the human touch, the idea of returning to artisan skills and making things that last. From this we came up with the concept of the human hand, crafted entirely from thousands of tiny handmade paper cubes, using high quality James Cropper paper.

"Using a combination of traditional modelling techniques and 3D scanning technology, we crafted two larger than life hands entirely from 4cm paper cubes. The hands, standing at around 2m tall, emerge from layers of grey and black cubes in their thousands. In total, around 35,000 cubes were used, with each element of the space telling a story about sustainability, the creative process and the art of paper-making.

"A simple colour scheme of blues, greys and accents of vibrant oranges and yellows really brought the space to life while giant versions of the cubes on the central plinth reinforced the materials used and highlighted the amount of work that had gone into each piece. The result; a beautiful and bold celebration of the many hands of northern industry, past present and future."

To find out more, visit www.flowcreation.com or watch the beautiful video below where you can enjoy seeing the process behind the project.