Sunday 4 August 2013

Alternative London walking tour














On Saturday my friend and I went on the Alternative London walking tour. A two hour tour around East London, looking at the varied, exciting, thought-provoking and often don't-spot-it until-you're-pointed-it-out art. So, what is street art? I looked on Urban Dictionary (appropriate for the urban nature of this post, Wikipedia just wouldn't do) which defined street art as: 'Street art is any art developed in public spaces - that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to art of an illicit nature (as opposed to, for instance, government or community art initiatives). The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, though it is often used to distinguish modern public-space artwork from traditional graffiti and the overtones of gang territoriality and vandalism associated with it.' As I found out, there are many different ways to produce street art - it certainly isn't 'tags' you see adorning monuments and people's back gates (grr), from stencilling to rolling to chipping away at a building to make a relief sculpture... I particularly like how street art is placed on the street for people to add to - often transforming it from its original state into something alive and edgier.Here are some examples of the street art you will see on the tour [spoiler alert!]:



Images: Lucy

No comments: