A hard-earned spooky coincidence
Jeremy Deller’s Procession for Manchester
Welcome to the amazing coincidence department.
A commenter on Mumbrella this afternoon has pointed out that VB’s ad The Regulars – featuring a march through Ballarat – bears a remarkable resemblance to a performance piece by the artist Jeremy Deller in Manchester in the UK.
While The Regulars marched behind banners such as “men who should have read the instructions”, Procession For Manchester included people marching behind banners like “Unrepentent smokers”.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=HrXUtM4nlwk
https://youtube.com/watch?v=whjNr-hjr7E
Being a cynical type, Dr Mumbo assumed it was the usual story of agency-nicks-art. His suspicions were tickled even more when a call to Droga5 – the agency behind the ad – was met with creative honcho David Nobay hanging up (although that may also have been because we’d compared the agency to Paul McCartney’s former band Wings earlier today).
But a bit more investigation suggests that this really may just have been one of life’s weird coincidences.
Procession For Manchester took place on Sunday July 5, 2009. The Regulars was unveiled less than 72 hours later, and filmed well before.
We’re through the looking glass, folks…
Update: We’ve had an email from the artist, who says: “It looks like a total accident, I certainly had no idea, a great ad though.”
Deller’s was done 4 years ago, then performed last year.
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