The Martin Luther King Mural, New Brighton -seaside town regeneration project 2019
Art from A and K
New Brighton is undergoing massive regeneration and the seaside town has been chosen as a regeneration model for the UK by a Parliament Report released in 2019.
The Martin Luther King mural was the first large scale mural in New Brighton. The brief was inspired by U2’s single - Pride (In the name of Love) and the original artwork cover.
MLK’s face is sprayed in at over 5m x 7m - making this the largest mural of Martin Luther King outside the USA. The second verse from the single also features along with the date of Dr King’s assassination and the date when the mural was unveiled.
This mural was created during Brexit at a time where there was a wave of patriotism sweeping across the nation. Therefore we selected to use the Union Jack as the background for the mural. There are 63 colours used across the worlds 196 country flags and we used every single one to colour in the Union Jack’s. We feel that national identity is massively important but at the end of the day we all bleed the same and that is why we dripped the 63 flag colours down into the flags.
wood + umbrella+ cherrypicker = Unstoppable
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass... its about learning to paint in the rain.
On the adjacent wall the words from Dr King’s famous ‘I have a dream speech’ catch your eye from the Victoria Quarter.
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.”
