Friday 9 May 2008

Cans Festival

On Saturday 3rd May 'Cans Festival' opened to the public. Banksy, along with street artists from around the world, injected new life into a disused tunnel underneath Waterloo Station.

This exciting half-mile stretch of tunnel, loaned out by Eurostar for six months, opened my eyes to street art. The central location and scale of the place is ideal for raising awareness of high quality graffiti and I think it may make the society look at this type of art in a different way.



I like this kind of art as it is very bold, imaginative and brings colour to the urban landscape.

Banksy said he wanted to "transform a dark forgotten filth pit" into "an oasis of beautiful art".





Frequently these stencils are trying to communicate something to the viewer. Banksy has shown a man cleaning a wall perhaps to suggest how he would like the street art to remain in the tunnel.


There was so much variety on the walls with several of the murals playing to the grimy feeling of the tunnel.

One memorable piece that was different to the others was of two giant faces. Instead of just applying paint to the walls, the surface had been chipped away to form a picture, with the left over pieces still on the floor. This also gave it a 3D quality.


Another successful factor of the Cans Festival is that in the opening three day exhibition, the public had the chance to participate by adding their stencil work to the tunnel walls, making it their own space as well.

Banksy says: "I've always felt anyone with a paint can should have as much say in how our cities look as architects and ad men."

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