Brandalism

Some of the worlds leading street artists, including Broken Fingaz, Eyesaw, Ghost Patrol and Paul Insect among plenty others, have recently joined forces and released the manifesto of a new project to take back advertising space. A worldwide movement, they recently toured the UK over 5 days and hit 33 spots in 5 cities between them, aiming to create the start of “the largest reclamation of outdoor advertising space in UK history as artists challenge the authority and legitimacy of the advertising industry.”

Sure, hitting billboard spots is nothing new, neither is doing it for the purpose of taking out adverts for that matter, but it’s interesting to see how the mainstream media will react to some of the ‘street art golden boys’, some of which have almost been given free passes on cities, striking out at the consumerism and corporate culture they run off so directly. More so, law enforcement will have a tough game to play, with any advertisers who attempt to sue the artists risking their credibility with the younger sections of their customer base and it will no doubt spark an interesting debate about the nature of our society.

“Inspired by a little known writer Sean Tejaratchi, the infamous British street artist Banksy plagiarized and popularised the Brandalism term in his latest book – ‘Wall & Piece’. It is from here that we are picking up where they both left off with the Brandalism project by putting words into action with the world’s first international, collaborative subvertising project.”

They make some bold claims, but I’m wondering what effect a project like this could ever have. Even so, there’s some nice visuals to be scoped! Check out more over on their website.