In July 2016, pro-life groups forced the removal of Maser’s ‘Repeal the 8th’ mural in Temple Bar, Dublin. Supporters of the Repeal movement were outraged, but their hands were tied because local planning law wouldn’t allow the mural to return. We contacted Maser, Hunreal Issues and Project Arts Centre and worked with them to create an innovative and legal way to return the mural to its infamous blue wall. To prove you can’t paint over an issue, we created an ‘Augmented Reality’ version of the mural and returned it to its original location.
But we didn’t want it on just one wall, we wanted it on every wall. So we created a stand-alone mobile site, ‘8mural.com’ that allowed people to view the mural using their phones when standing outside Project Arts Centre in Temple Bar. They could print their own augmented reality markers which they could stick on any wall they liked, spreading the mural across Ireland and abroad. To promote 8 Mural, we created a video and Facebook page and allowed people to make their own stand. Our message reached over 100,000 people on Facebook, with thousands of likes, shares and people printing their own version of the mural, it was picked up by major online publication and even featured on Newstalk’s latest TV ad.
