Leading UK web hosting and domain names provider Easyspace is taking part in this summer’s huge public art exhibition – the Elephant Parade in London.
The Glasgow-based web hosting company is sponsoring one of the 250 life-sized model baby elephants that will be displayed across London as part of the Parade’s campaign to highlight the plight of the Asian elephant.
Errol Vanderhorst, managing director of Easyspace, said: “Our company logo is an Asian elephant so we felt there was a real synergy in supporting such a wonderfully creative project to raise awareness about its plight.”
Easyspace asked students at Glasgow Metropolitan College to design and decorate its elephant while Glasgow’s famous Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum agreed to display the model so it could be seen by the public in Glasgow before it was transported to London.
“The talented students of Glasgow Met have enabled us to produce a really stand-out elephant that will show off the artistic talent we have here in Scotland. We hope thousands of people will see it both in Glasgow and in London.” continued Vanderhorst.
‘Cosmos’ – the artistic name for Easyspace’s elephant – will spend this weekend (26 – 28 March) on public display at Kelvingrove before being transported to London to take part in the Parade.
The Elephant Parade, which takes place between May and July, hopes to raise more than GBP 1 million for more than 15 UK conservation charities working to protect Asian elephants.
Easyspace, which is part of Glasgow-based web hosting company iomart Group Ltd, is the UK’s third largest domain name registrar, registering thousands of domain names each month. It has been raising money for the campaign since the autumn by donating cash from its sales of domain names.
Vanderhorst added:” Our Elephant Parade campaign has allowed us to give the students of Glasgow Met a taste of what working in the real world is like as well as highlighting to us how our business needs to look outside of itself to support important issues.”
At the end of the Elephant Parade, Easyspace’s elephant will be auctioned at a glittering auction hosted by Sothebys.
To see pictures of ‘Cosmos’ being decorated visit the Easyspace Elephant page on Facebook. To learn more about the Elephant Parade, visit www.elephantparadelondon.org.
For more information about Easyspace visit www.easyspace.com or follow on Twitter at http://twitter.com/easyspace
Notes to editors:
Easyspace: Founded in 1997, and purchased by the iomart Group in 2004, Easyspace is one of the largest providers of web services in the UK.
Initially established as a domain registration and web hosting provider, Easyspace has evolved to now offer dedicated servers, virtual servers, web design and extended services such as ecommerce solutions, email and more. For more information visit www.easyspace.com
Elephant Family: Within only 100 years the elephant population has shrunk by over 90%, dropping from 250,000 to an estimated 25,000, placing this valuable species dangerously close to extinction. If current trends continue the Asian elephant will cease to exist in the wild by 2050.
Elephant Family has been campaigning for conservation of the Asian elephant since 2002, and with this new project it aims to grow public awareness and gather signatures for a government petition and to raise vital funds for conservation projects in Asia, securing the Asian elephants a place in our future.
Each artist and designer has been given an individual 1.65m (L) x 1.48m (H) x 0.70m (W) elephant and asked to create something completely unique.
www.elephantfamily.org