Full Description
This is the first scholarly collection to examine the social and cultural aspects on the worldwide interest in the faded remains of advertising signage (popularly known as 'ghost signs'). Contributors to this volume examine the complex relationships between the signs and those who commissioned them, painted them, viewed them and view them today. Topics covered include cultural memory, urban change, modernity and belonging, local history and place-making, the crowd-sourced use of online mobile and social media to document and share digital artefacts, 'retro' design and the resurgence in interest in the handmade. The book is international and interdisciplinary, combining academic analysis and critical input from practitioners and researchers in areas such as cultural studies, destination marketing, heritage advertising, design, social history and commercial archaeology.
Contents
1. Uncovering Ghost Signs and their Meanings
[Leanne White, Stefan Schutt and Sam Roberts]
2. What is a Ghost Sign?
[Sam Roberts and Geraldine Marshall]
Part 1: Social Perspectives
3. The Ghost in the Sign: A Psychological Perspective on Ghost Signs
[Anthony W. Love]
4. Torch Songs to Modernity: Ghost Signs as Emblems of the Urban Soul
[Antonina Lewis and Kirsten Wright]
5. Crowdsourcing Pioneers: the Co-creation and Institutionalisation of an Amateur Collection
[Laura Carletti]
6. That One Up There Was Mine: Lost Artisan Identities and the Renewed Interest in Painted Advertising Signs
[Stefan Schutt and Tony Mead]
7. Displaying Ghost Signs Online
[Colin Hyde and Amy Barnes]
8. "This peaceful revolution": resonances of a London ghost sign
[Yvette Williams Elliott]
Part 2: Cultural Perspectives
9. The Schwarzenegger hide-and-seek. Finding disappearing hand-painted signs in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
[Cristina Nualart]
10. Faux Ghost Signs: Nostalgia, Authenticity, and the Role of the Sign Painter
[Meredith Kasabian]
11. The InVisibility of Chicha: a Socio-Historical Account of the Emergence and (Re)production of Chicha as 'Gráfica Popular' in Lima, Peru
[Caroline E. M. Hodges, Azucena del Carmen Cabezas León and Janice Denegri-Knott]
12. Marketing the Past: Ghost Signs and Sydney's Marketing History
[Robert Crawford]
13. Ghost Fascias: Retail Corporate Identity Revenants in Urban Space
[Gary Warnaby and Dominic Medway]
14. Bedrock
[David Bernstein]
Part 3: Historical Perspectives
15. Ghost Signs and the Teaching of Immigrant History
[Robert Pascoe and Gerardo Papalia]
16. The Mural Legacy of N.V. Gevaert Photo-Producten: Lessons from a Preservation and Restoration Process
[Klara Peeters, Sarah De Smedt and Joost Caen]
17. Signs of Life: Recognising the significance of Melbourne's Historic Painted Signs
[Leisa Clements]
18. Olive Oyl Ignites a Spark
[Veerle De Houwer]
19. Historic Signs: Toward an Understanding of their Community Value in Heritage Practice
[Rachel Jackson]
20. Teaching the Ghost Signs of Seattle
[Marie Wong]
21. Ghost or Avatar? The Value of Conserving Heritage Signs
[David S Waller and Helen J Waller]
A Last Ghost Sign Story
[Stefan Schutt and Sam Roberts]
