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About
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Drone footage of Alan Boyson's (1963) 'THREE SHIPS' mosaic mural on the former Hull Co-op/BHS
building in Hull. © Blanche Pictures/SHIPS in the SKY/OctoVision Media 1010/19 |
Drone footage of Alan Boyson's (1963) 'FISH' ceramic mural on the former Hull Co-op/BHS building in Hull. © Blanche Pictures/SHIPS in the SKY/OctoVision Media 03/10/19
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SHIPS in the SKY is an arts project by Esther Johnson to create a poetic portrait of a unique place. Evoking peoples’ navigation and memories of the public realm, the project aims to stimulate new perspectives of public art and the built environment.
The project is inspired by Alan Boyson's colossal THREE SHIPS that floats above the entrance to the post-war former Hull & East Riding Co-operative Society department store, later a BHS. The building has had many lives – a department store, an indoor market, a dance hall, a music venue and the nightclubs: The Skyline Ballroom, Bailey's and Romeo's & Juliet's. A central meeting point in Hull and a frequent backdrop for public events, THREE SHIPS is woven into the very fabric of the city of Hull. On closure in 2016, the building canopy acted as shelter for the homeless and now lays empty ahead of imminent demolition and redevelopment with hoardings that proclaim, ‘A Prime Opportunity in the Heart of the City’. THREE SHIPS was awarded Grade II Listing by Historic England on 21 November 2019. Find out how you can CONTRIBUTE |
THIS WEBSITE IS:
HULL'S THREE ALAN BOYSON ARTWORKS The former Hull Co-op / BHS building is unique for having three Boyson artworks:
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This website has been set-up by Esther Johnson and project research assistant Leigh Bird through a shared exuberance for the Hull former Co-op / BHS building, and the work of Alan Boyson.
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“Growing up in Hull, seeing this unable to miss piece of public art was formative in my wanting to study art. My Dad comes from a long line of trawler-men and seafaring folk, and whilst sitting with him opposite the mural on Saturday lunchtimes (eating fired egg sandwiches from the local deli Fletchers), he would translate the Latin resper industriam prosperae "success through industry" and tell me tales of his first trawler trip at the age of 12 to Murmansk and beyond the Arctic Circle. Aside from an avid fondness for Boyson’s graphic modernist aesthetic, I associate the mural with stories of fantastical travels to far off lands, voyages that all began in Hull. Three Ships has almost become a metaphor for where life might lead me; its destruction would break my heart.” — Esther Johnson is an artist and filmmaker from Hull who works with moving image, audio and photography |
“As a child I was spellbound by the mural's size and thought it beautiful in a way I didn’t [yet] understand. I vividly remember sitting with my dad on the fountain opposite, when he traced the word ‘HULL’ in the masts with his finger. The fountain and my dad are gone now, but the mural is like beacon or lodestone rising up in the city. If anything, I am even more captivated by it and hold the mural gloriously accountable for my love of modernism. For it not to be there is just unthinkable.” — Leigh Bird is a marketing and social media consultant from Hull, with a passion for art and architecture @BHSMuralHull Twitter mistress |
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The R&D project phase has been funded by James Reckitt Library Trust
in partnership with Untold Hull at Hull Libraries, and with the support of the Art and Design Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University and Hull Trinity House Old Boys' Association |
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