Street art is something which, at its best, represents the needs and values of the community. As such, it has an extraordinary ability to inspire us.
In recent years, we’ve seen the concept transform from something requiring suppression into a celebrated part of the culture. Artists like Banksy have led the charge, but there are many more out there, all making valuable contributions.
In this post, we list four times street art inspired us.
To Protect Ourselves During The COVID Pandemic
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COVID-19 has affected all of our lives in ways that we simply couldn’t have imagined at the start of the year. Governments locked down entire economies. And now they’re telling us what we can do and who we can spend time with in an attempt to control the spread of infection.
It should come as no surprise, therefore, that street artists have been reacting to the situation. Their art is both politically relevant and socially useful. For example, in Germany, we have seen murals of Golem from Lord of the Rings cradling a roll of toilet paper, saying “my precious.”
In other places, the focus has been more on the work of health workers. In the US, for instance, murals have been appearing of nurses wearing Superman face masks as a tribute to the personal sacrifices they have made in fighting the virus.
There have even been references to Donald Trump’s bleach idea, with murals featuring the figurehead carrying a bottle of bleach with the tagline “kills 99.9 percent of Americans.”
To Continue The Fight For Racial Justice
Photo by Monnivhoir Aymar Kouamé from Pexels
2020 also saw increasing visibility of the civil rights movement. Protesters all over the country came together to argue for equality between the races and black rights.
Now a group of artists is using their skills to paint murals inspired by the recent demonstrations. Walls of Justice, for instance, is honoring the fallen by creating murals of people killed in the violence we have seen over recent months.
To Honor Nature
We all know that we need to do a better job of looking after the natural world. If we don’t do something fast, researchers believe that sea levels will rise, the rainforest will shrink, and the climate will become more inhospitable.
Now street artists are turning their attention to the issue, creating works that seek to honor the natural world. For instance, if you travel to the Selaron Steps in Rio de Janeiro, you’ll find a neighborhood project that used mosaics to depict fish, shells, and the shapes of animals. The result is a beautiful work of art that reminds us of the importance of wildlife in our world.
To Remind Us Of Childhood
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In these crazy times, it is sometimes helpful to remember that we were once all children and saw the world in a fundamentally different way. That’s why Dean Stockton, also known as D*Face, focuses so much on images of life from his childhood. He creates cartoon and skate graphics to remind us all that there’s more to life than politics.
