Emily Graves spoke with street artist Micah Purnell

Micah: This is 40 graphically produced pieces that I gave myself 40 minutes to produce each for. Normally I'd spend something like between four and 12 hours to produce a poster, so 40 minutes is quite a restriction for me. This was during lent which is 40 days, where people take a break from something and try and remember the important things in life. Stewardship, a UK Charity, promote generous giving and provide an online service where you sign up and they'll send you a little suggestion of how to be generous to your friends; how to be thoughtful of the environment and different ways of being generous. I took this and decided that I should make a piece of work. It was a bit of a spur of the moment thing and just for practise and for fun; but as it developed, what I noticed and what surprised me was the work was half decent, even though I only gave myself 40 minutes. I would upload them to the social networks every day, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter and they seemed to be received very well, which surprised me. People spurred me on and so I kept going.

40 minutes exhibition piece - Malcolm X

Emily: Did you find it very intensive over the 40 days?

Micah: Yeah, it was tough going after a little while, but at the same time I was enjoying it; just finding 40 minutes in a day. At the same time I'd get messages from people stating how they'd really been spurred on through a difficult time through one of the pieces for example and these sorts of things helped me to continue. I even took a trip to New York; I got my flight and got over there, then pulled out my laptop and carried on. It came with me wherever I went.

I work with writing and during that time I saw the world around me change a little bit and some of the suggestions they made challenged me. I had to put that into a graphic and a sentence. Theirs were maybe 200 words and I put it into eight words. There were things like giving blood; I'd always fancied it, but never really fancied doing it. I made a public declaration and said ok here it is; I'm going to tell you I'm going to give blood and there it is in a public place and so I'm going to have to do it. I managed to fulfil that just this week and the proof of that will be on the exhibition.

Emily: What piece are you pleased with the most?

Micah: A bloke recommended that you would go out without your car; you'd have a car free day. I thought that could be very interesting; you could have a bit of adventure. The work that I produced looks like a film poster with a fifties, maybe sixties type face on it. It makes me think that you could have some fun wandering the streets, smiling at people and having a think, rather than getting in the rat race of driving.

Emily: So if people want to find out more about the exhibition and want to go and see it how can they find out more?

Micah: You can find out more at the Prestwich Life website.

Emily: Do you have your own website too?

Micah: Yes www.micahpurnell.com.