Tag Archives: London street Art Tours

paste up street art in Shoreditch by comedian Bill Boorman also known as street artist Beirdo celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with the message Pride is more that a parade

Pride Street Art In Shoreditch

Last weekend marked London’s main 2022 Pride celebration and a lot of new Pride street art appeared in Shoreditch in celebration of and support for the LGBTQ community.

On the Shoreditch Street Art Tour on Sunday I was asked by one guest why the London Pride was in July rather than June as they were used to.  Post tour digging revealed that “Pride in London”, the official title at present, is timed for the closest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots in NYC which followed police raids on the Stonewall gay bar on 28th June.

The pride rainbow flag features in a lot of the Pride art pieces in its 6 colour traditional colour form, as opposed to the usual 7 colour representation of a rainbow.  The first rainbow flag was designed by the artist Gilbert Blake in 1978 at the request of Harvey Milk (see the film Milk, excellent).  It had 8 colours, the traditional 7 colours of the rainbow plus hot pink above the red.  Each of the 8 colours was assigned a specific meaning.  In 1979, aiming to increase flag production, the pink strip was dropped as hot pink material was not readily available.  The turquoise stripe was also dropped so that the flag could be split and displayed in symmetrical paired halves each having three stripes.  Thus the common Pride 6 colour rainbow evolved.

Subdude used an 8 stripe Pride flag to highlight statutory homophobia on the African continent.

paste up street art in Shoreditch by political street artist Subdude points out that homosexuals are legal targets in 30 African nations celebrating 50th anniversary of Pride in London

Subdude – Pride London 2022

Street artist Beirdo prefers 6 colours, or perhaps was just out of hot pink and turquoise A4.

Anti Conversion Ban Therapy paste up street art celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with of messaages on rainbow coloured paper comedian Bill Boorman also know as  street artist Beirdo in Shoreditch

Beirdo – Pride London 2022

Apparan sends her greetings and wishes you Happy Pride, with 7 rainbow stripes.

paste up street art by street artist Apparan in Shoreditch celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with a heart depicting love with 7 stripe rainbow flag motif flowing through it

Apparan – Pride London 2022

Drash La Krass has a list.  No homophobia, no biphobia, no transphobia, no sexism!

Drash La Krass glittery paste up street art in Shoreditch celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with a no homophobia no bi-phobia no transphobia no sexism message

Drash La Krass – Pride London 2022

Ghead_Tra is a new name this year to the Shoreditch street art scene and his art hates hatred and Conservatives.  The God Loves Gays tricolour specifically aims at the vile spewing Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas USA.

Anti gay anti abortion extremist with Westboro Baptist Church placards held by children

Westboro Baptist Church anti gay anti abortion message – credit Jerod Harris

 paste up street art celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London opposing Westboro Baptist Church anti gay  art with messages by street artist Ghead_tra in Shoreditch

Ghead_art – Pride London 2022

If this next text based piece isn’t Ghead then Ghead ought to get together with the unknown artist as the message seamlessly blends two big issues Ghead has gone long on (anti gay bashing, anti Tory).

 paste up street art celebrates 50th anniversary of Pride in London with anti Tory text set in rainbow flag colours  by an unknown street artist in Shoreditch

Unknown artist – Pride London 2022

Sidenote: on another matter the same so-called place of worship also espouses extreme views on abortion and Ghead_tra parodies another specimen of Westboro extremism in opposition to that message.

Street artist Ghead_tra mocks Westboro Baptist Church anti-abortion views with modifications of their own anti abortion text say “abortion is my bloody choice”

“Abortion is my bloody choice”, Ghead_tra, July 2022

Ahead of this week’s Tory party implosion Social Sniper homed in on an issue which highlighted the breakdown of trust by members of the LGBTQ community in politicians.  This may need to be read slowly.  Conversion therapy is a process aimed at “curing” or changing expressions of gender behaviour, identity or expression.  To describe it as controversial would be to miss the most unacceptable aspects of the practice by a million miles.  Boris Johnson decided not to proceed with legislation to ban the practice which provoked howls of horror, at which point he flipped and decided there would be a ban except it wouldn’t apply to trans conversion therapy.

Anti Conversion Ban Therapy paste up street art depicts a trans woman and trans flag by street artist Social Sniper in Shoreditch

Social Sniper – – Pride London 2022

For the curious, the background to Social Sniper’s art is another form of colour spectrum specifically representing the trans community and their supporters.  Trans Pride is taking place this weekend (Saturday 9th July 2022), the weekend after Pride weekend.

Wandering down a parallel track again, one senior tory we didn’t know about before appeared on TV regretting that he had had to support the flip flops on conversion therapy policy.  When politicians publicly admit to supporting policies they fundamentally disagree with, how can voters expect to elect a representative possessing even the tiniest fragment of integrity.

Mike Freer MP

I am hugely indebted to my Shoreditch Street Art Tours co-guide Subdude for his insights and information regarding the content and installation of the art discussed.

All photos: Dave Stuart except where  stated

Featured artwork: Beirdo


Street art Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, London Street Art, London street Art Tours, London mural festival, LMF20, INSA, Gifiti, Gif-iti, animation

INSA Animated Mural For London Mural Festival

Spraying walls was the name of the game throughout September for the London Mural Festival. Shoreditch Street Art Tours is going to bring you coverage of the highlights soon but first off, here is one of the absolute standouts, an animated wall by INSA.

Old school graff writer INSA has been creating “Gif-iti” walls on the Shoreditch streets since 2011.  The one which probably brought greatest recognition was cops perpetually chasing eachother in the Cycle of Endless Futility, a tour favourite from its creatiom in 2014 to its sad loss to mural adverts in 2018.

Street art Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, London Street Art, London street Art Tours, London mural festival, LMF20, INSA, Gifiti, Gif-iti, animation

The Cycle Of Futility, Redchurch St 2014

INSA’s contribution to London Mural Festival #LMF20 consists of 8 strips each with an animation frame, the images segue along the wall.  As a static painting this could almost be a contemporary stained glass window.

It comes alive with INSA’s Gif-iti viewer, you can download that HERE, or go to the App store on your Phone, search “INSA’s Gif-iti Viewer”.  Don’t worry this app is legit, not spam!   Point the viewer at the image above on another device and Bob’s your uncle, the image comes to life!

Street art Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, London Street Art, London street Art Tours, London mural festival, LMF20, INSA, Gifiti, Gif-iti, animation

INSA, London Mural Festival 2020

If you can’t recreate the effect, check out this recording made using the Gifiti Viewer in front of the wall.

The critical question with any piece of street art is what are we looking at, what does it mean?  What I am seeing is someone throwing something, the action looks reminiscent of a protester hurling a Molotov.  Could that tousled blonde mop be anyone other current UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson?   What is being thrown is something of a mash up between the stripes in a piece of toothpaste and…the old Tory party logo.  At time of writing the Tory party is having its annual conference – online.  There’s a Boris Riot going on.

You may see something different and INSA’s concept may be different from all our theories, that’s art.

Street art Shoreditch, Shoreditch Street Art Tours, London Street Art, London street Art Tours, London mural festival, LMF20, INSA, Gifiti, Gif-iti, animation virtual street art tour,

Tory Party Logo

You can also recreate The Cycle Of Futility experience pointing your viewer at the image above.

London Mural Festival turned out to be quite epic, stay tuned for further coverage in the near future on the Shoreditch Street Art Tours blog.

Links:

INSA website

INSA Gif-iti website

photos and video: Dave Stuart