St Philomena's Church, an tallest churche in Asia comes alive in pen refills !

The miniature sculpture of St Philomena's Church, one of the tallest churches in Asia has been created with used 2500 pen refills by miniature artist Sreenivasulu MR. To mark his 10^th anniversary in miniature arts, he has come out with the structure and he has taken 18 months to build the structure and has worked three hours per day after his office work.

His wish is to make all the famous landmarks around the world from used pen refills and setup a miniature museum in Bangalore or Mysore. Thereby, he wants to educate people on 3R principle- reduce, reuse and recycle of plastic materials and save our planet.

Sreenivasulu, an software engineer by profession, is an native of Dharmavaram in Andhra Pradesh, and has settled in Bangalore. He had a hobby of collecting used pen refills from friends from the age of 13. By the end of his PUC, he had collected almost 2000 pen refills of different brand.

It was a decade ago Sreenivasulu who was creating miniature houses from marriage invitations cards, thought of creating a miniature work using used pen refills. In 2007, the miniature structure creation of 'Eiffel Tower' from used pen refills was initiated. It took 8 months to make Eiffel Tower from 200 pen refills. Later, the splurge of the structures continued. Charminar, Big-Ben Clock, Taj Mahal, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Gateway of India, Seattle Space Needle, Sydney Harbor Bridge and the recent one St Philomena Church, Mysore, India all fell out from used pen refills. Now, he has built 9th landmark St Philomena Church.

“Each structure takes 3 to 6 months to construct and it depends on the complexity of the architecture. The toughest and longest days of work is taken for St Philomena Church. I have spent 18 months and 2500+ pen refills to build the structure. Ideally I take 3 hours per day to construct the structures after my office work,” adds Sreenivasulu who is also a classical dancer and makes sculptures from chalks and sand.

He has set a nation record and has been awarded 'India Book of Records' in the year 2012 for making miniature of Taj Mahal from 700 used pen refills. He has displayed his works at several exhibitions. He visit schools and colleges in his free time to educate students on environment pollution by plastic materials. As pat of 'Say No to Plastic' programme, he has setup refills collection boxes, which is the source of raw material to make miniature structures. He also teaches students on making models.