Climate change: Joy Division album cover reworked as campaign mural

Music Declares Emergency said the new work symbolised "the eternal silence of a dead planet"

Peter Saville's reimagining of his cover art for Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, which highlights climate change, has been turned into a mural.

The Factory Records co-founder created the image, based on radio emissions from a pulsar, in 1979 but has reworked it as flat lines for campaign group Music Declares Emergency (MDE).

The work in Manchester adorns a wall close to a mural of Saville himself.

MDE said it symbolised "the eternal silence of a dead planet".

Saville's original cover for the 1979 album was based on the radio emissions from a pulsar

Saville, who became a CBE in the 2019 New Year's Honours for his contributions to graphic design and art, co-founded the renowned record label in a flat close to the location of the mural in 1978.

His designs for albums and singles by the label's artists, particularly those for Joy Division and New Order, saw his work become globally recognised and he later became Manchester's creative director.

He has also designed the England football strip and adverts for fashion house Dior.

MDE said the work in Withington was part of a wider campaign calling for "urgent action on climate" ahead of the COP26 UN Climate Conference in Glasgow.

The Manchester suburb has a number of murals celebrating those who have lived there, including one of footballer Marcus Rashford, which was vandalised after he missed a penalty in the Euro 2020 final.

The person responsible for the damage has yet to be found.

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