Over two days, across 10 British cities, 365 corporate ad spaces were taken over by original, handmade artworks crafted by 40 artists. Most of us didn’t have much experience of this kind of thing before, but we shared a desire for public space free from visual pollution and from cultural values that promote and exploit impossible bodies, wreck the climate through constant consumerism, fuel debt and normalize inequality, both global and local. We weren’t having any of it. So, we got organized, we got tooled up, and on the weekend of 10 and 11 of May — with specially printed orange high-visibility vests — we took to the streets and unlocked these expensive, ubiquitous, privatized spaces and commoned them with our own ideas and images.
Some of our sites were strategic. Outside courts and the flashiest department stores to poor residential areas taken over by repetitive drip feed buy-me value-me advertising that we don’t even realize is affecting us.
Fear was overcome through working with a tight and trusted crew, and by looking like those that work for the industry itself complete with blue overalls, black workboots, cardboard tubes, simple T-Bars, T30 or T45 nut driver tools. And by acting casual, that we had the right to do this. The aim of Brandalism is to ask certain questions such as: why does the industry think it has the right to impose images and values on us without our consent? Whose public space is this? Who does the city belong to? We felt: ‘We are the city.’
