Contemporary banner maker Ed Hall creates striking, richly coloured banners for trade unions, campaign groups and other organisations. This will be the first solo exhibition of his work and is an exciting opportunity for the People’s History Museum to showcase the work of the UK’s foremost trade union and campaign banner artist. The exhibition will illustrate the continuing relevance of the ancient visual art of banner making in Britain today.

Hall’s spectacular banners will be displayed alongside preparatory sketches, photographs, newspaper clippings, archival material and film, to contextualise his work and give a sense of how ‘working’ banners are made and used by campaigning groups today. There will be hands on opportunities for all the family including a chance for you to indulge your creative side and design a banner for a cause you believe in. All designs will be judged by Ed Hall in three categories, under 11s, 11-16 and adults. All winners will receive a set of postcards of Ed Hall’s banners plus the under 11s and 11-16s winners will receive a voucher to spend in the museum shop and the adults winner will receive a voucher for a meal for two to spend in the museum cafe. Thanks to Couture who run the museum’s Left Bank cafe bar for sponsoring the prizes.

Bringing it right up to date the exhibition will feature a film of the planned TUC National Demonstration Against the Cuts on 26 March 2011 made by filmmaker Matt Killip in partnership with Jeremy Deller and Ed Hall. Many of Ed’s banners will be carried on this march. Ed Hall has an established relationship with artist Jeremy Deller who with Alan Kane included Hall’s Brixton Bomb banner in their submission to the “Intelligence” exhibition at Tate Britain in 2000. The banner was also part of Jeremy’s and Alan’s Folk Archive which toured Britain and was also exhibited in Belgrade and Basle. A banner made by Ed Hall celebrating the docking of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in 1948 and which brought ex-servicemen and women from the West Indies was part of Jeremy Deller’s Turner Prize winning entry in 2004. Deller says of seeing the Brixton Bomb banner for the first time “It seemed a fantastic combination of the tradition of banner making with a contemporary subject. It was a key moment for me as an artist and that’s why he is my icon.” The exhibition will feature this famous banner as well as banners made for Jeremy Deller’s Procession, part of the Manchester International Festival 2009. For more information about Procession visitwww.manchesterprocession.com.

www.phm.org.uk

Collection Artist(s)

Glossary

  • Contemporary

    Existing or coming into being at the same period; of today or of the present. The term that designates art being made today.

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.

  • Film

    A transparent, flexible plastic material, usually of cellulose acetate or polyester, on which light-sensitive emulsion is coated, or on which an image can be formed by various transfer processes.