Harts Lane studios: All I want is Peace
In the first article of her series Public art: public speech, Kirsten Downer meets the artists behind the billboard that appeared above shoppers at New Cross Gate.
This iconic, ironic response to Christmas 2024 loomed large over the thousands of vehicles and commuters traversing the A2 close to New Cross Gate station. Dreamt up as a fundraiser for radical local arts gallery Harts Lane studios, and an international Open Call for art, it took the familiar Maria Carey Christmas song as its starting point, before tapping into the anti-war zeitgeist and paying tribute to Yoko Ono’s famous PEACE public artworks along the way.
And for some, its positioning at the entrance to a retail park gearing up for Christmas sales, also lent it a subversive anti-capitalist message.
Artist Cristiana Botigella, one of the three local women who founded Harts Lane studios by occupying the building in 2012, designed the poster in collaboration with an artistic designer at Build Hollywood, an arts billboard company which offers billboard space for community arts projects.
Initially they planned to fill the billboard with artworks, but as the project unfolded they decided instead to prioritise the message. The fundraiser element was relegated to very small type at the bottom.
The gallery wanted the statement to express "a widespread feeling that we wanted an end to the wars and the horrible stuff going on in the world," says Harts Lane co-founder Sigrun Sverrisdottir, and to encourage artists to respond to that statement.
270 international artists responded to the open call for postcard-sized artworks, each donating up to four works, which Harts Lane studios framed and sold at a standard price of £30. They held two shows, one at Christmas and one on Valentine’s Day.
Artists from as far afield as the US, Nevada, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam, Belarus, South America, Italy, and Belgium participated, with everyone’s artwork priced the same, including Turner prize 2002 nominee Fiona Banner.
Artists, residents and commuters experienced the poster’s message as cathartic, communicating something widely felt but allowed little public expression. It led to many new members and artists finding the gallery for the first time as well as a very large anonymous donation.
The fundraiser is ongoing at Harts Lane studios.
From left to right: artists response to All I Want...is Peace: Fiona Banner, Angela Wright, Jose Abad Lorente
