Artists revisit bell hooks’ seminal All About Love in UK billboard takeover

bell hooks published the groundbreaking book All About Love in 2000, though it’s still finding new readers today – broken down on TikTok and revisited online for its enduring take on love. In the text, hooks explores how we love in an oppressive society; for BuildHollywood, its message is more timely than ever in our current age of crises and uncertainty. So the creative outdoor media company has enlisted five artists to create artworks inspired by hooks’ work. From April to September, these artworks will appear across billboards in five UK cities.

Grace Ndiritu, Jasleen Kaur, Eve Stainton, Helen Cammock, Asmaa Jama are the artists involved. Each has created works for their hometown, or the city in which they currently live and work. The project will kick off in Birmingham with Grace Ndiritu and run until 30 April, before moving to Glasgow, Manchester and Brighton, culminating in Bristol from 8-10 September. Through the project, BuildHollywood hopes to champion local creatives, but also touch neighbourhoods with “messages of love, care, vulnerability and bravery”, curator Zarina Rossheart shares. A teaser poster campaign for All About Love is also designed by Fraser Muggeridge studio.

The campaign uses a single quote from All About Love as a jump-off point for commissions: “Whether it is the ongoing worldwide presence of violence expressed by the persistence of the man-made war, hunger and starvation, the day-to-day reality of violence, the presence of life-threatening diseases that cause the unexpected deaths of friends, comrades and loved ones, there is much that brings everyone to the brink of despair. Knowing love or the hope of knowing love is the anchor that keeps us from falling into the sea of despair.”

Grace Ndiritu will explore hooks’ work first with a piece inspired by a love letter written to the artist’s mother and one of her favourite artists Mike Kelley. Grief: A Love Letter will appear across 20 billboards in Birmingham.

Zarina Rossheart states: “My intention behind this project is to connect people from all over the UK to bell hooks’ radical book All About Love and to its legacy, which is so relevant in the world we live in.”