© Ed Hall

Ed Hall

Ed Hall, was born in Norwich in 1944, he now lives in London. Ed Hall is a British architect, who after getting involved as secretary of a workers’ union in the 1990s, has since developed an art of making banners for many activist groups and unions. This is how Ed Hall has been able to achieve for thirty years an abundant collection of banners for unions and groups such as: Stop the War, The Palestine Solidarity Campaign, CND, the Anti Nazi League, Unite against Fascism and for families and friends of those who died of police violence. From the 2000s, he met the artist Jeremy Daller, with whom he collaborated and notably created banners for the “Procession” project during the Manchester International Festival and for the British Pavilion at the Venice Art Biennale. His banners have been exhibited in many museums and galleries and have been represented at numerous demonstrations, unions and militant groups marching for their rights in the streets of Great Britain and Europe.

 

In the Cabinet de curiosités économiques, 6 Banners are gathered, each of them representing a militant group, a union or a cause. They have all been used in demonstrations organized by activist communities marching for their rights, justice and equality. This collection of protest banners therefore consists of: a banner in honor of Robert Kett who fought in the rebellion against the grabbing of common lands in the 16th century and which echoes the grabbing of common goods and  natural spaces by multinationals; a banner celebrating Julian of Norwich who was the first English-speaking woman writer to claim, in times troubled by persecution and war, love and care for all living things and the environment; a banner calling for justice to be done for Brian Douglas, who died of police violence in the 1990s; a banner for “The Monitoring Group” working to monitor injustices against immigrants, black and racialized communities; a Great Yarmouth Trades Union Council banner honoring the female herring bouncers who fought for rights as workers, including the right to unemployment,  and finally, a banner celebrating 100 years of pension rights, a campaign that grew out of the women’s suffrage movement.