Gilbert & George Serve Up Limited Edition Plates to Feed East London's Most Vulnerable

To coincide with Gilbert & George’s new show ‘NEW NORMAL PICTURES’ at London’s White Cube gallery, The Canvas Cafe, a social enterprise in East London and Gilbert & George’s neighbours are releasing limited edition plates by Gilbert & George. These special editions of previously released designs will raise much needed funds to support Gilbert & George’s neighbours The Canvas Café, a social enterprise in East London that provides free meals to the homeless and families in need. 

Each edition is presented as two plates together, ‘BEARDLIGHT & BEARDTOAST’ from 2021 and ‘ROSY’ & ‘ON THE BENCH’ from 2020. All 12” plates are fine china, screen-printed with up to 17 colours. They were manufactured and hand-finished in the traditional pottery heartland of Stoke-on-Trent by Duchess China 1888 to the highest quality and are numbered according to their specific double-edition number on the back. The editions, limited to 50 of each set, cost £500 and are completed by a piece of writing by the artists and a photograph by Nick Dolding. 

“Thanks to Double Helpings, and our incredible neighbours Gilbert and George, my social enterprise has been able to create now thousands of free meals for our local community, including families facing child poverty and elderly neighbours shielding from the virus. Distributed via partner organisations such as the Women’s Inclusive Team, One Housing and local schools, these carefully planned meals don’t just provide vital nutrition; they also offer kindness and love, as the need for all this grows ever more urgent,” said founder Ruth Rogers.

As ever this is a neighbourhood effort helped brought to life by advertising agency McCann London. First started as a project by ECDs Ray Shaughnessy and Dan Norris when at Wieden + Kennedy, McCann London took on the project by launching both the open edition of ‘BEARDLIGHT & BEARDTOAST’ and developing and producing all design elements of the limited editions created by Senior Designer August Campbell. Joint ECD Ray Shaughnessy said:  “As we see the growing impact on communities everywhere this past year, the latest iteration of this project aims to help The Canvas Café scale up their operation and help more people than ever before. It’s our honour to help our neighbours”.