After a heavy night meditating to immense bass at DMZ on Saturday night, yesterday I dragged my sorry arse (note to self, tequila is never a good idea) out of bed and went for a wander to check out Cans Festival (Banksy, 3D's street arm jam in a disused road/railway arch underneath Waterloo station). Except half of London under the age of 25 did the same and there was an hour queue to get in, so off I wandered onto the South Bank proper...
Where I found the spirit of hip hop alive and kicking: these guys were performing street dance and breakdancing with a one speaker set up and enthralling the masses with a combination of theatre, panto, street dance set to hip hop, pop, and disco. I happily gave 'em a nugget for their work.
The boarders and bikers were out in force too, turning the brutalist concrete of the South Bank into a buzzing arena for physics defying, self expression, against a backdrop of graffiti. This dude is actually travelling the other way - as in he's going this way >>>>>>>>>>>>>> at high velocity - I managed to get him as he's doing a 360 mid air, or a pirouette on his BMX.
After a couple of freebie exhibitions at NFT and Royal Festival Hall, and signing up for a campaign to commemorate soldiers lost in Iraq on postage stamps (great idea!), and a quick refuel at the Slow Food festival I went back to Cans Festival, where the waiting time was five minutes. Reeeeeesult.
Cans Festival was inspirational and teeming with slogans and images that show people are peeved and care about what is going on around us: whether Boris Johnson, war, rampant reckless consumerism. At times I despair if anyone cares, this restored my faith in people, humanity and London. Not everyone's obsessed with shopping, material goods and trapped in a bubble of conspicuous consumerism.
The Pope literally meets Marilyn Monroe.
Half of London's original graf writers are in their late 30s with kids, so suddenly this makes sense...
My pix capture about 2% of what was going on at Cans Festival... It's more than apparent to me that there's a DIY creative revolution happening, facilitated by the internet, social networking and cheap technology. This festival was all about stenciling, easy, straight forward, lo-fi art, that speaks volumes. Warhol might be considered the father of 'pop art' but in the truest sense of the two words, we're experiencing it right here, right now.
All of the above cost me nothing, and is why I LOVE London (despite fellow Londoners either not bothering to vote or voting for that racist cretin, Boris Johnson)!
