Gareth Fuller is an artist and explorer. His work acts as a layered gaze into the identity of urban and rural places, transcribing their personal, geographical, and social meanings into what he calls ‘maps of the mind’. The results of these transcriptions are vast and intricate hand-drawn compositions – a series of visual portraits that express his personal and purposeful wanderings.
A flying fist outside the gates of Lu Xun Park depicts the scene from Bruce Lee’s film, Fist of Fury, set in 1910, where he destroys a sign telling Chinese people that only foreigners can enter the gardens. Inside the park, a bomb and flags signify an explosion set by a Korean activist that killed members of the Japanese army in 1932.
A universal thirst for beer defines North Korea’s selection of breweries and microbreweries. This imagined site is included as a feature from a district I was not allowed to visit.
The Malcom X Community Centre, marked here by his glasses and fictional mural, is at the heart of Bristol’s African Caribbean community. The venue is used during the famous St Paul’s Street Carnival – the carnival’s historic logo, a decorative mask, and nearby sound system, symbolise the celebration of Afro Caribbean culture since 1968.
