While most of us reuse old newspaper to wrap breakables, hold fish and chips, or create paper-mache sculptures of our pets, Atsushi Adachi has a much more creative use for them. A Japanese visual artist, Adachi takes old newspapers and uses them to create replicas of machines FROM THE PAST.

newspaper art
newspaper art
newspaper art

If you’ve ever been to Japan, you may notice their newspapers are a lot thinner and harder to work with than newspapers from other countries. Apart from locally sourced papers, he also tries to find newspapers from other parts of the globe. No matter what country it comes from, however, Adachi uses newspapers from the same time period as the item he is re-creating, making them even more brittle and prone to flaking than today’s papers.

According to him, working with newspapers dated to the specific build helps him get a better understanding of what the designers had in mind when making the real deal. As an added bonus, many times the newspaper articles reflect the media and public opinion of these creations at the time. You’ll never be able to view them all, but bits and pieces can be seen on certain parts of Adachi’s work (provided you can read Japanese, German, or whatever language the papers are in).

newspaper art
newspaper art
newspaper art
newspaper art
newspaper art

He’s already re-created an army of battleships, Neil Armstong’s astronaut suit (made from the pages of a novel), a crashed fighter plane, and an old Bugatti T35 among others. To see more of Atsushi Adachi’s work, you can follow him on Instagram. If you aren’t the social media type, then his webpage will keep you occupied.

Author

Carlos wrestles gators, and by gators, we mean words. He also loves good design, good books, and good coffee.