ONE OF Northern Ireland's most iconic landmarks, the Free Derry Wall in the Bogside area of Derry, underwent a dramatic facelift at the weekend when local residents, together with a group of spray-can artists from Switzerland, painted their personal messages on the wall.
To facilitate the event members of the local Bluebell Arts Project painted over images already on the wall to give contributors a blank canvas to work with.
"It was a tremendous success," said organiser Jim Collins. "It followed widespread community consultation, and because the wall has been used for almost 40 years in terms of highlighting community issues - such as painting it pink last year for the Foyle Gay Pride week - this year the message from the community was that they wanted to put their messages on the wall in art form.
"We had over 100 contributors in the event, which was supported by Derry City Council and by the Northern Ireland Arts Council. In fact it was a massive success.
"The contributions related to regeneration issues, environmental issues and to people's dreams and aspirations for the Bogside. In the past, consultation processes involved widespread questionnaires and surveys so we decided to use the wall as a blank questionnaire which people could fill in in a creative way.
"We even had a group of Swiss spray-can artists who took part. They were here in the Bogside on holiday and they were bowled over at the idea," he said.