Ulysses 100 Pin

The aim of the collaboration was to create a series of pins based on the National Gallery’s collection and Ireland’s rich cultural history.

Martha Hegarty, founder of Mink, chose James Barry’s The Death of Adonis (c.1775), Harry Clarke’s The Song of the Mad Prince (1917), James Joyce’s Ulysses and W.B. Yeats’ epitaph as the diverse subjects for the collection. The result is a series of four pins accompanied by a piece of writing on the history and meaning of each artefact.

Martha Hegarty is an Irish designer currently based in London. She holds an MA in Modern & Contemporary Art History and has worked in various creative fields across Ireland, Switzerland, Vietnam & the UK. Mink is a project that began in 2020 and combines a number of her mediums and interests: set design, graphic design and art history. 

“I was drawn to the idea of making something that people could wear and walk around with and tell stories about, and I had always bought pins. There’s something appealing about how solid they are; you can have the silliest idea but casting it in metal somehow gives it weight and gravitas. I’ve found that there’s actually a lot you can put into such an unassuming medium. It’s similar to how crafts that are historically seen as feminine or innocuous, like embroidery, can actually have a lot of subversive bite. My background is a mix of theatre design, graphic design and art history so I wanted to create a project that combined all of those things in one place, and something that was totally in my own voice.”

"The year 2022 is one century since the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses, with June 16th as the centenary of Bloomsday itself. This blue is the same shade as the first edition’s cover and opens on an extract from page 393. It’s embossed with Joyce’s real signature and has two magnets installed on the inside, so the book doesn’t flap open when worn.

A celebration of ordinariness, Ulysses is a hybrid of poetry, play and novel. A work of meticulous detail, Joyce once said that if Dublin were to be destroyed, the book could be used to rebuild it brick by brick. Carry the story with you as you wander through Dublin and beyond."

Image: Letter from James Joyce to Alfred Bergan sending season's greetings. James Joyce, James Augustine Aloysius (22 December 1936)

• Soft enamel pin
• Gold plated with blue enamel
• Screenprinted script inside
• Installed with magnets to keep the book shut when not being read
• 40mm high
• Embossed with logos
• One blue rubber clutch
• Comes with its own special backing card with story
• Guaranteed good time

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  Website: www.marthahegarty.com