Limerick, Ireland
Angela Darby & Robert Peters, Public Address: The Peoples Wall, 2006 - 2008, banners and posters installation, dimensions variable

Angela Darby & Robert Peters

b. 1967, Ireland & 1962, England

The Public Address: The Peoples’ Wall series of works documents an urban ritual prevalent in the north Down and Ards areas of Northern Ireland. Handmade banners or photocopied posters are displayed in public places to notify passers-by of a person’s birthday. The ‘bulletins’ are placed there by friends and family members to both celebrate the event and publicly humiliate the individual named. Sometimes childhood images are incorporated into the posters to add to the embarrassment. The types of places selected for display are ritualistically the same bridges, same fences, same hedges and the same lampposts along busy stretches of road or at major junctions. After initial documentation of the images in their original position, the photographic records are presented on a wall as a compendium of actions which sit outside the usual consumer orientated response to celebration. Our intention is that this tradition can be transplanted into other towns and cities, initiating a micro-trend in homemade celebratory banners.

(Text: too early for vacation catalogue, 2008)

Back to Artists