Your Space Or Mine

Pogus Caesar and Benjamin Zephaniah

Jack Arts supported a collaborative arts project to bring an inspirational and poignant display of photographs and poems onto the streets of Birmingham.

In response to the devastating riots of 1985, the ‘son’s of Birmingham’, artist Pogus Caesar and Poet Benjamin Zephaniah, collaborated to create a city-wide, urban intervention of billboards and poster sites at street-level locations across the city.

The campaign revisits a period of social unrest and turmoil, a visual reminder of the history of the streets in which the poster sites stand.  The powerful black and while images, taken at the height of the Handsworth riots by Caesar on a 35mm Canon he still used today, were showcased alongside new, reflective poems written by poet Benjamin Zephaniah.

The creative pairing resulted in striking, thought-provoking visuals intended to stimulate and encourage conversation.  The project is part of an ongoing Jack Arts initiative, Your Space or Mine, in which we use our poster sites in unique and inspiring ways to provide a platform for artists and creatives.  It was developed in partnership with Flying Leaps an artist street display project that seeks to make unexpected, positive contributions to our urban environments.