Some of us can't leave the house without one, while others don't see the need for them.

But even the most ardent list-writers have probably never thought of their humble scribbling as works of art – until now.

A pair of artists are transforming a Bristol art gallery with thousands upon thousands of lists: shopping lists, to-do lists, lists of jobs, lists of everything.

And your shopping list could be in there too – without you realising. Because the trolley collectors at Tesco in Eastville, next to Ikea, have been ferreting away the lists shoppers have used and then discarded at the bottom, for the very purpose of donating them to the exhibition.

Both the artists are called Lucy, and both found each other through their love of lists. They said the exhibition, called There's More to Life Than Lists, which opens in Centrespace Gallery off Corn Street next week, makes a statement about how we organise our lives, try to make sense of the chaos around us and procrastinate.

Lucy Barfoot, 22, replied to Lucy Duggan's appeal for to-do lists for her fledgling idea a year ago. The pair hit it off because Lucy B collects shopping lists and Lucy D was into creating art from to-do lists, and they combined forces to create the exhibition

Lucy B said: "The exhibition is looking at the way us humans organise our lives into lists; how we try to make sense of the chaos and procrastinate.

"My art partner and I have collected thousands of to-do lists. We have also been looking at shopping lists, how we live in this dissipate way in which we, in our society, live – with the loss of eating in communities, we now eat in small numbers or alone.

"We wrote to Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda about collecting discarded shopping lists and only Tesco said 'yes'."

The pair also wrote to more than 100 celebrities, from the Queen and the Prince of Wales to Elton John and Gordon Brown asking for their old, discarded to-do lists. The exhibition features the letters the pair received back declining the requests, each one a work of art in itself.

The exhibition opens on Saturday, October 10, at Centrespace Gallery, off Corn Street, Bristol.