Large-format billboards across Birmingham will be taken over by renowned Birmingham-born, Kenyan artist GRACE NDIRITU for one weekend this month as part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD’s first major curatorial and artist commission, ‘All About Love’.
Taking place across five UK cities between April – September 2023, the ‘All About Love’ project champions artists who are either born in those cities or live and work there, with the commissions taking inspiration from a quote from All About Love, the groundbreaking book, published in 2000, by cultural critic, feminist theorist and author, bell hooks.
Launching in Birmingham with a new commission from Ndiritu entitled Grief: A Love Letter (2023), the project’s first weekend-long takeover from 28-30 April will see the Birmingham-born artist’s work presented on thirty billboards located in prominent sites across the city including the Custard Factory, the Old Crown Pub, Floodgate Street and Barford Street.
On Saturday 29 April, Ndiritu will also host a performative event where she will be joined at Digbeth Art Space in reading on Grief and Love by ten Birmingham-based artists and writers.
Curator Zarina Rossheart says: “I am delighted to be launching the first commission in the series in Birmingham with ‘Grief: A Love Letter’ (2023) by Grace Ndiritu. Grace has been doing unique and very important work across the UK and internationally for the past twenty years. Concerned with the transformation of our contemporary world, she has focused on the themes of healing and inclusivity in her work with museums across the world and initiated monumental social practice projects with refugees, migrants and indigenous groups. Presenting Grace’s work on large-scale billboards across Birmingham will be an unprecedented opportunity to touch local communities with messages of love, care, vulnerability and bravery.”
Grief: A Love Letter, 2023 by Grace Ndiritu is inspired by a love letter written to the artist’s mother and one of her favourite artists Mike Kelley. A personal and tender quote from the letter appears on the billboard: “Wherever you are I hope you have found peace’’, with the background image juxtaposing consumerism with nature; the glossy fashion imagery we are accustomed to seeing on billboards now obscured by hand-painted drawings of leaves.
