Billboard

NIGEL BANKS, 2024

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Billboard reflects the idea of a well-crafted message stranded in isolation, like a billboard in the desert—beautiful, but unseen. Inspired by John Jantsch’s metaphor for websites that no one visits, the piece explores the futility and beauty of self-expression that may or may not reach an audience.

In three phases, Billboard mirrors the journey of life. We begin by projecting our aspirations outward—our billboards shaped by ego and early self-discovery. But as life unfolds, these grand declarations are stripped down by experience, like wind and water eroding the surface. In the final phase, we have shed the need for external validation. Ego opens a balanced dialogue with True Self, and we become whole, no longer needing the billboards that once defined us.

  • 1 - Stick: Represents birth and initiation, modelled after a piece of driftwood from Mount Maunganui—a source of energy.

    2 - Coda: Marks the departure and arrival points in our journey, from birth to self-acceptance and ultimate death

    3 - Billboard: Symbolises our external projections of self, the aspirations we put on display for others.

    4 - Lava Flow, Waterfall, Wind: Nature’s forces that challenge and purify our path, representing the trials that refine our understanding of ourselves.

    5 - OK Girl: Forever energetic, curious and unafraid, OK Girl permanently stands out of time in the magical flow of the moment. OK Girl’s appearance on the hillside provides a metaphor for a reaching out to the landscape to declare character, analagous to the gigantic white stick figure of the “Long Man of Wilmington”. We build ourselves out there.

    6 - Ego Moon: The balanced state of Self, where Ego and True Self are in harmony.