By Lesley Walsh
A DRAMATIC new mural has been unveiled in Bangor depicting the ongoing battle to bring an end to violence against women and girls.
Painted by locally-based artist Friz, the mural on Hamilton Road carries the essence of the campaign to protect females, amid an alarming trend in the rise of violence, and was unveiled on Saturday.
The mural was co-designed by the Flip the Script girls group from YMCA North Down, whose experiences and perspectives helped shape the design, and was developed in collaboration with the Ards and North Down Community Safety Team.
Located in a prominent town-centre location, the mural carries the powerful message Girls Just Wanna… Walk Home, highlighting the right of women and girls to feel safe in public spaces. The mural was unveiled by the Mayor of Ards and North Down, Craig Blaney, who said it carries a simple but powerful message that every woman and girl should be able to walk home without fear of harassment, intimidation or violence.
“By placing this artwork in a prominent location, we hope it will encourage people to stop, reflect and talk about the realities many women and girls continue to face,” he said. “The young women involved in this project have created a thought-provoking piece that uses art to raise awareness and inspire positive change.
“Ending violence against women and girls is a shared responsibility, and creating safer communities requires all of us to play our part,” he added.
The mural forms part of Ards and North Down Council’s ongoing commitment to promoting safer, more inclusive communities for everyone.
It was funded through Stormont’s Executive Office’s Ending Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAWG) Strategy’s Local Change Fund, which supports local and community-based action to help prevent and address the issue of violence against women and girls.
Friz, the artist behind the mural whose name is Marian Noone, said she had been approached by the local YMCA’s Flip the Script group, as a female artist whose work often focuses on strong female subjects.
“They had done a few projects themselves about the issue of violence against women and girls, and micro subjects on the theme, like online abuse,” she said.
She explained that the germ of an idea for the eventual mural image began to emerge following an event, similar to the Reclaim the Night movement, when the YMCA’s young women and girls walked local streets, highlighting the need to feel safe while going about their daily lives.
Connie Egan, the Alliance MLA and party spokeswoman on the campaign to end violence against women and girls, said: “This striking piece of art not only adds colour and vibrancy to Bangor city centre, but also serves as a powerful catalyst for conversations within our community and helping to raise awareness of the campaign to end violence against women and girls’.
Adding a musical backdrop to the unveiling were the Riotous Uke-a-Ladies, winners of the Belfast Ukulele Festival’s Battle of the Bands, who performed a specially adapted version of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want to Have Fun, adapting the popular anthem lyrics to reinforce the mural’s message that ‘girls just wanna walk home’.
