10 Years On

10 years ago today (April 27th 2008) a tiny acorn was sown, I led my first street art tour.  The story begins with ace photographer and ninja street art documenter Sam HowAboutNo, he and I endured the 9-5 tyranny in office treadmills a few hundred yards apart on the border of Shoreditch and our therapy for many years was to hook up almost every day for extended lunch break meanders photographing street art, drinking and playing pool.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

C215, HowAboutNo, NoLionsInEngland, Brick Lane one lunchtime 2012

Friends of HowAboutNo had organised an auction of art by street artists to raise funds for a cancer hospice but as neither of us were artists we couldn’t make a contribution on canvas but we had an idea – guide people on a street art tour, share our geeky knowledge of the art and collect donations for the charity.  Thus the first “Cancer Sells” street art tour was held on Sunday 27th April 2008 followed by three more over the next couple of months.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

^2008. NOT THIS YEAR!!

MJar, an artist who subsequently become a friend and indeed a significant influence came up with a wonderful graphic and the tours were promoted through Hookedblog and a few posts on a forum.  The potential was visible there and then, some people even came from abroad specifically building short breaks around the fact that something called a street art tour was available.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

Start of Tour L-R Friend (still has seat next to me at Loftus Rd), NoLionsInEngland & HowAboutNo; photo credit Gaby Higgs

The first tour lasted all told about 7 hours and we put people through hell, quite a bit of coffee and fairly significant amounts of alcohol. In between the multiple refreshment breaks we did get to see a lot of street art, as captured in a rambling semi-coherent Graffoto blog post.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

Sweet Toof, Burning Candy, HowAboutNo, Cancer Sell Tour 27 April 2008

As an aside, those of you who have seen Banksy’s street art documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop, the piece just visible in the right hand end of the above photo is the piece that Sweet Toof and Cyclops are painting when they get busted by the feds in the opening minutes.

One of the guests on the first tour was graffiti photographer Bravo99 who became a great friend but with whom we sadly lost touch just a few years ago.  Bravo99 pointed out to me that I was missing out lots of tags and saying nothing about the culture of graffiti, he really opened my eye on that tour to the importance and beauty of graffiti, as opposed to straight street art which hitherto had been my interest.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

HowAboutNo, Bravo99 in front of graff by DON, West London 2012

The idea for those tours was inspired by the Banksy Tours led by Martin “Shellshock” Bull, a vastly more dedicated Banksy fan than I, in 2006, which was where my friendship with both Martin and Sam HowAboutNo began.  There may have been other earlier street art tours, I am not aware of them.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

Banksy Tour 2006 feat Banksy, Space Invader and the future Graffoto team Shellshock, NoLionsInEngland & HowAboutNo. Photo from HowAboutNo

Shellshock, aided and abetted by artist and designer S___ wrote the legendary Banksy Locations and Tours guides (Vol 1 & Vol 2 – Shoreditch Street Art Tours discount code SSATOUR) ; S___ became a great friend and indeed his design and programming genius generated the infrastructure on which Shoreditch Street Art Tours has been operating successfully for the past 5 years.

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

NoLionsInEngland (Dave), HowAboutNo, S, Martin Shellshock, Bravo99 2011

With thanks to all those mentioned here for their help and for others whose friendship, guidance and expertise have been invaluable, I never imagined that those first steps on April 27th 2008 would lead to where Shoreditch Street Art Tours is today!

Shoreditch Street Art Tours, 10 years, Graffoto, Cancer Sell, HowAboutNo, Stef, Hoodacious, Shellshock, Bravo99, London

April 2018, feat Eine (detail) photo: Tal Ophir

All photos Dave Stuart except where credited