Filmmaker Maxine Walters has an obsession. Carrying her tools at all times, climbing up walls and shimmying up poles: Maxine collects old Dancehall posters. Beginning about 2001, she now has more than 500.

Like the rest of us, it was something she previously took for granted, after all they’re nailed to posts everywhere, where they’ll otherwise remain forever – that is until space is needed for the next one; or Maxine shows up.

With most of the pre-Maxine posters swallowed up by Japanese collectors she reckons her efforts are preserving a piece of our cultural heritage. They remain on exhibition at the Jamaican Embassy in Havana and others are currently showing at the Real Artways gallery in Hartford, Connecticut.

Foreigners simply can’t get enough of them. In fact, it was an American who turned on Maxine to the posters in the first place.

Now, we’re also grateful.

“Like every other Jamaican I accepted the posters as part of our landscape , meaning , basically I did not really pay any attention to them. Then one day in 2001, an ex-Peace Corp volunteer friend of mine who came back for a holiday brought me one as a gift. Christina Kirsten had taught art in Jamaica, and I had watched her collect some of the most amazing intuitive pieces during her time on the island and always marveled at her amazing ability to recognise the genius in the self-taught artists’ work,” she explained.

Her home in St Ann’s Bay is now plastered with the newfound art. Others posters are in storage, others on show and meantime she keeps collecting.

“Well let’s put it this way, in my car there is permanently a hammer and a crowbar. I will stop anywhere, climb poles, banks, pay for help, and even sometimes pretend I am from the Department of Parks and Markets when challenged in a community. Because the signs are illegally placed on the lightpoles. Usually my challenger is quick to assist me when I explain where I am from and that there is a fine associated with ownership,” she laughed.

Partly thanks to her efforts the posters are becoming collectible artworks. The proceeds of any sales will go to the Consie Walters Cancer Care Hospice, named after her father who helped found it.

“Since the Real Artways opening I have since received emails, asking if I will sell prints of the posters, so that may soon come. My plan is to take the signs around the world as I promote jamaican street culture, and turn the world into one big fun-loving Dancehall.”

Exhibition: Jamaican Dancehall Posters from the collection of Maxine Walters