Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Bonnie Bonnie Banksy
With only a few weeks left in London before I move back home to Glasgow, I thought I should fill my time with something quintessentially ‘London’ (thats the first time i’ve used that word, I’m uncertain at best..we’ll see how it goes). For the past year or so I’ve carried my camera with me pretty much everywhere I go, never wanting to miss a good photo opportunity and looking to boost the interestingness of my Flickr photostream.
I’ve always been impressed with Banksy’s stencil graffiti art, but for some reason never had the inclination (nevermind the time) to purposely go in search of it. That is until a few months ago, when I discovered the big yellow flower one is just round the corner from my house - so that got me started. Not long after that we stumbled across the Tesco flag one on Essex Road (which we must have passed a bunch of times, but always waliking in the other direction!).
So now that Ive got some time to kill I’ve started on the purposeful search thing. Despite a plethora of lists and maps and photos all over the web, it has proved difficult to find one definitive, reliable, accurate list of existing Banksy’s artwork. Some have been ‘vandalised’, painted over, removed by local councils. Some have even been auctioned and removed along with the wall they’re painted on! Initially I planned to plot an entire tour of London and set off on my bike to cover it all in a day, but then it came apparent there were pockets of them not too far from home, then i tried to fix my bike and made it worse so it turned into several long walks instead.
One sunny Saturday afternoon I jotted down a list of a few locations around Brick Lane. Either I didnt look hard enough or they’re all gone now. I did end up wandering past the yellow flower one though and found that someone had scrawled some nonsense over the top.
On Monday I had to go into town so it was an ideal time to finally snap his newest ‘One Nation Under CCTV’ piece. Since the weather was decent I thought I’d walk the length of Oxford Street and try and hunt down another older one near Marble Arch. So this turned out quite a productive trip, much more so than the Brick Lane jaunt! Since then I’ve decided the most reliable source of information is from Flickr photo geotags and EXIF data. Sifting through the Banksy pool, I can check for locations on the map, and then check the ‘Taken on…’ date to see if it’s recent and most likely still there. I reckon there’s still a few more good ones out there to find, so keep an eye on my Banksy set on Flickr to see how it goes.
And to those who would criticise my ‘quintessential London’ comment, yes I know that Banksy’s art has appeared in Bristol, Brighton and other places all over the world, and I don’t have that ‘London-is-the-centre-of-the-universe’ complex - but he’s done a LOT in London, and certainly none in Glasgow.
