Monument to the Unknown Woman Worker

Coordinates: 54°35′42″N 5°56′06″W / 54.595°N 5.935°W / 54.595; -5.935
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54°35′42″N 5°56′06″W / 54.595°N 5.935°W / 54.595; -5.935

Monument to the Unknown Woman Worker

The Monument to the Unknown Woman Worker is a 1992 sculpture by Louise Walsh in Belfast, Northern Ireland.[1]

The sculpture is located on the city's Great Victoria Street adjacent to the Europa Hotel. It is cast in bronze and features two working-class women with symbols of women's work embedded on the surfaces. Domestic items such as colanders, a shopping basket and clothes pegs are part of the sculpture.[2][3]

The Department of the Environment's original commission, in the late 1980s, was for an artwork to reflect the nearby Amelia Street's history as a red-light district. Walsh's design "Monument to the Unknown Woman Worker" was accepted by the project's landscape architect and the Art in Public Spaces Research Group, however the Belfast Development Office and the Belfast City Council opposed the project and the selected design, and the project was dropped in 1989. A few years later a private developer recommissioned the work and it was erected in 1992 (32 years ago) (1992).[3]

Walsh was born in County Cork, and received her MA in sculpture from the University of Ulster.[4]

References[edit]

  1. ^ "The National College of Art and Design - Fine Art". Archived from the original on 12 September 2011. Retrieved 10 February 2014.
  2. ^ "12 Monuments & Memorials Dedicated to Amazing Women". WebUrbanist. 13 June 2008. Retrieved 28 August 2017.
  3. ^ a b Hocking, Bree (2015). The Great Reimagining: Public Art, Urban Space, and the Symbolic Landscapes of a 'New' Northern Ireland. Berghahn Books. pp. 12–14.
  4. ^ Arts Council of Northern Ireland