Chris Packham’s T-Shirt Designs 2013

MISSING – LOST – STILL LOST

The posters which decorate our suburban telegraph poles desperately requesting information about missing pets always strike me as heart-wrenching and tragically sad. I read them and hope that the missing and much loved companions have been found, that the owners just haven’t bothered to return to take away the fading scraps which blow in the wind and drip in the rain.

I have never needed to paste such a plea but my heart goes out to all those who have.

A few years ago I decided to use these posters as the basis of an art project. I produced a whole series of ‘Missing Posters’ featuring exotic creatures. Rhinos, Tigers, Lions, Crocodiles and Pandas. I pasted them on all the local lampposts, they bemused some and amused others. For me they were a relief from the tragic originals.

Then I thought it would be more interesting to actively involve those who stopped to read them so I added a genuine telephone number and set up an answer machine to record all those who rang to report sightings.

They were an hysterical addition to the project. In the end I drafted about twenty posters and included some UK wildlife, species which were not ever pets and clearly could not thus ever be lost. I did a few species which were declining or endangered but also some common and familiar animals.

I recently showed them to my step-daughter who is now eighteen and explained what happened. I asked her what she thought. She thought a lot but also that some of them would make good t-shirts because they ‘make you laugh when normally you feel like crying’.

Well, here are three of them. I’ve changed the number which is not real. Enjoy.