p 26 | BIGISSUE.COM 09-15 MARCH 2020
LIAM KIRKALDY MEETS THE MAN
WHO’S TREATING THE CAPITAL
LIKE A GIANT BLANK CANVAS
Lee Bofkin is on a mission to cover your city
in paint.
In fact, the co-founder of Global Street Art
has spent the last eight years on the hunt for
new walls, doors and shutters to act as urban
canvases. He has been very successful too,
organising more than 100 murals in housing
estates across London, while also bringing new
art to construction boardings and building sites
across the city.
Now, nearly a decade later, he has helped
find space for more than 2,200 legal street art
murals, with the process culminating in the
launch of the first London Mural Festival – a
pan-London celebration of street art – running
in September.
“The easiest way to change how people feel
about being in an area is to change the way
that area looks,” he explains. “If you are walking
down the street and you see a blank wall you
might not notice it. But if you see a mural then
at least you have something to see, and to talk
about. It can help people slow down and talk
with each other, which helps communities
function properly.
“If you hurry through a place you have less
to say. But if the neighbourhood signals thatpeople give a shit, that people are looking after
it, that people are able to express themselves,
that sets a tone for how people interact with
each other.”
So how do you go about becoming an
evangelist for street art? Bofkin’s journey is an
unusual one – he has a PhD in evolutionary
mathematics and also did a stint working in
finance – but his first encounters with street
art actually came while breakdancing for
the UK. Then, 15 years ago, he tore his knee
in a competition, ending his dance career
overnight.
“I just stopped dancing”, he says. “But
street dancing and graffiti were often side by
side, they’re in the same youth clubs. So I had
started photographing graffiti a bit because I
was photographing the dancers I was hanging
out with anyway. Then after I got injured I just
carried on photographing graffiti, and I started
meeting more artists.”
Over time more and more street artists
started coming to him to ask for advice on where
they could find walls. Some were from London,
some beyond, and over time the network
grew. And as blank walls became colourful, the
landscape of London too began to change.Writing's on the wall
London will enjoy even
more murals like Gary
Stranger and Pref 's work
& Again in Crystal Palace