ABOUT

SHIPS in the SKY is a social history arts project by Esther Johnson that records the many lives of Hull’s former Co-op and BHS building. With a focus on peoples’ role in ‘place-making’, the project aims to stimulate new perspectives of mid-century public art and the built environment.

The project is inspired by Three Ships, the UK’s largest mosaic, designed in 1963 Alan Boyson. This public artwork floats above the entrance to the post-war former Hull & East Riding Co-operative Society department store, later a BHS that closed in 2016. In 1961 Boyson made a smaller interior Fish Mural placed in a corridor near the fourth floor Skyline Ballroom, and a geometric sponge printed tile mural in the Skyline bar, which was rediscovered during R&D for this project.

The building has had many lives – a department store, an indoor market, a dance hall, a music venue and the nightclubs. Memories of the building have been recorded from many perspectives – from store shoppers and employees, to construction workers, and recollections of gigs in the buildings Skyline Ballroom, later Bailey’s nightclub and then Romeo’s & Juliet’s. Emphasis is also given to how buildings and associated public art can be crucial for civic place and memory-making, and geographical and historical local identity. For instance, the Three Ships mural has an explicit connection to Hull’s fishing and maritime heritage.

A central meeting point in Hull and a frequent backdrop for public events, Three Ships is woven into the very fabric of the city of Hull.