Martin Firrell Unveils Final Work as Bauer Media Outdoor Artist in Residence

Public artist Martin Firrell has unveiled his final project as Bauer Media Outdoor’s Artist in Residence. The series of public artworks, entitled ‘Counter Culture Rising’, conveys a cinematic narrative, exploring various forms of hippy counter culture, and is currently displayed across Bauer Media Outdoor’s digital Out of Home network nationwide.

Public artist Martin Firrell has unveiled his final project as Bauer Media Outdoor’s Artist in Residence. The series of public artworks, entitled ‘Counter Culture Rising’, conveys a cinematic narrative, exploring various forms of hippy counter culture, and is currently displayed across Bauer Media Outdoor's digital Out of Home network nationwide.

During his residency, Martin has created four projects that explored different aspects of the human experience. The first project, entitled “Power & Gender”, examined the difference between the way women and men gain, hold, and use power, and featured inputs from senior women in UK business and public life.

In addition, Martin also produced the project “Union City”, examining the idea of fairness in society; and “Skin 2019”, a series of artworks commissioned for Black History Month that explored race and identity.

‘Counter Culture Rising’ features a series of artworks displayed across twelve digital billboards across the country. Collectively, the billboards bring a story to the UK’s streets of alien visitation, dire warnings about climate catastrophe, war, the threat posed by machine intelligence, the power of living peacefully and the elusive possibility of advanced states of consciousness. The artworks will run until the beginning of March.

Bauer Media Outdoor’s UK & European CEO, Justin Cochrane, said:    

“It’s been an incredible experience having Martin as our Artist in Residence for past the 12 months, and I’m proud that our digital network was able to work as the perfect “art gallery” to broadcast Martin’s thought provoking work. Not only have his superb and engaging works helped to drive public conversations about important subject matters in today’s society, his residence has also been inspirational and enriching to our teams across the whole business.”

All the art projects are part of Martin Firrell’s mass public art project socialart.work, which aims to create debate about power and gender, women's equality and masculinity, alternative forms of economic and social organisation, black power, and solidarity between people from different backgrounds and ethnicities.