Save Banksy! - Petition Downing Street
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveBanksy
OK so I got so riled by the news article the other week about Transport For London scrubbing off the Banksy 'Pulp Fiction' spoof that I was actually moved to petition the Prime Minister (Who will most likely be Gordon Brown by the time the petition ends) to try and encourage local authorities to preserve all that is great and good in British graffiti art.
I mean think about it. Councils spend thousands of pounds of taxpayer's money commissioning pretentious and/or bland public works of art to decorate our public spaces and yet if someone does something spontaneous that really stands out, isn't offensive and enhances the environment it is in at no extra cost to the taxpayer then it automatically gets stamped out because it wasn't run past a bunch of focus groups first. Tough on public expressions of humour, tough on the causes of public expressions of humour.
For a long time conservatively minded local authorities have believed that by removing graffiti this will have the knock-on effect of reducing serious crime in the area. This is of course a blatant lie invented to mask a cynical move to reduce the public perception of crime by tackling visual signs because it's easier and most probably cheaper than actually tackling murderers and rapists, who of course people don't usually notice on their everyday stroll to the shops until it's too late.
Let's be realistic about my intentions behind this petition. I'm not some naive hippy who wants to see preservation orders slapped on every street mural as a result of this petition or anything like that but if we can encourage and stimulate debate on the issue of how we treat guerilla street art, whether it's Banksy murals, subversive fly-posters or Welsh kids drawing on the pavement with water-soluble chalks then it's going to help us as a society to find a compromise.
So if you're with me, then sign the petition. If not then sign it anyway for a laugh. Go on, you know you want to...
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveBanksy
OK so I got so riled by the news article the other week about Transport For London scrubbing off the Banksy 'Pulp Fiction' spoof that I was actually moved to petition the Prime Minister (Who will most likely be Gordon Brown by the time the petition ends) to try and encourage local authorities to preserve all that is great and good in British graffiti art.
I mean think about it. Councils spend thousands of pounds of taxpayer's money commissioning pretentious and/or bland public works of art to decorate our public spaces and yet if someone does something spontaneous that really stands out, isn't offensive and enhances the environment it is in at no extra cost to the taxpayer then it automatically gets stamped out because it wasn't run past a bunch of focus groups first. Tough on public expressions of humour, tough on the causes of public expressions of humour.
For a long time conservatively minded local authorities have believed that by removing graffiti this will have the knock-on effect of reducing serious crime in the area. This is of course a blatant lie invented to mask a cynical move to reduce the public perception of crime by tackling visual signs because it's easier and most probably cheaper than actually tackling murderers and rapists, who of course people don't usually notice on their everyday stroll to the shops until it's too late.
Let's be realistic about my intentions behind this petition. I'm not some naive hippy who wants to see preservation orders slapped on every street mural as a result of this petition or anything like that but if we can encourage and stimulate debate on the issue of how we treat guerilla street art, whether it's Banksy murals, subversive fly-posters or Welsh kids drawing on the pavement with water-soluble chalks then it's going to help us as a society to find a compromise.
So if you're with me, then sign the petition. If not then sign it anyway for a laugh. Go on, you know you want to...
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/SaveBanksy