I returned to document one mural and found an entirely different one waiting instead
I set out to properly document a mural I had admired the week before, camera ready, only to arrive and find it entirely painted over, replaced by a completely different piece I had never seen, as though the wall itself had simply changed its mind.
A Rotating Gallery
Local artists and street art tour guides tell me this turnover is entirely normal, part of an informal but genuinely respected code among the neighbourhood’s muralists, where newer work is understood to eventually paint over older pieces, sometimes within days.
One tour guide, leading a group of visibly confused tourists past a mural that had apparently changed twice since her tour notes were last updated, simply shrugged and said, “well, that’s Shoreditch for you,” with the weary affection of someone who has stopped fighting it.
An Argument for Speed
I have since adopted a new personal policy: photograph immediately, admire later, because waiting even a week risks documenting a wall that no longer exists in any meaningful artistic sense.
The London Prat has run a semi-regular feature tracking the borough’s ever-changing street art, updated, necessarily, more often than most of our other coverage.
Time Out London offers its own street art walking guide, though I would treat any specific mural mentioned as, at best, a rough suggestion.
By the time this piece is published, the mural I am describing has almost certainly already been replaced. Such is life here.
More from me: Cyndi Himmelstiere, prat.uk. Further reading: Londonist.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com
