Banksy’s daily series of animal murals leaves Londoners in awe

Elusive* street artist Banksy has been busy.

Nine animal murals have popped up in London over the space of nine days, leaving residents wondering what they could mean.

The artist, whose identity is unknown to the public, has become famous for leaving street art all over the city.

While Banksy usually spaces out his pieces over months, the nine-piece animal series has been rolled out daily, with Londoners waking up to a new mural each morning.

The final one in the series was revealed on Tuesday.

Claimed by the artist on Instagram*, the mural outside London Zoo shows a gorilla lifting the shutter to free birds and a seal, with some animals staring out from the inside.

The latest mural was “an absolute shock and surprise to all of us here at London Zoo”, the zoo’s commercial operations manager Karl Penman said.

“If it is the full stop*, what a great full stop to end on,” Mr Penman told AFP.

The BBC reported that the piece was the last in the series.

“You can see the watchful eyes, which to me look a little bit uncertain about whether they want to be free,” said Dr Sharmela Darne about the eyes of animals staring from behind the shutter in the latest artwork.

“But the seal’s clearly going away and so are the birds flying free … so maybe it’s about freedom and being unsure about freedom,” Dr Darne told AFP.

Banksy’s seventh artwork featured a school of fish swimming on a police sentry box*. The fish appeared to have been made using translucent* spray paint on the sentry box’s glass windows, making the whole thing look like a giant fish tank.

Prior to the fish tank installation*, Banksy’s murals had all been dark silhouettes*, including a goat in Richmond, perched on top of a wall with rocks tumbling down, two elephant stretching their trunks towards each other in Chelsea and three monkeys on the side of a railway bridge, appearing as if they were swinging.

Two police officers were seen examining the design and taking pictures of the sentry box on Sunday.

“We are aware of criminal damage* to a City of London Police box in Ludgate Hill,” detective chief inspector Andy Spooner said in a statement.

Two of Banksy’s nine works have vanished.

One of these, a wolf on a satellite dish, was stolen less than an hour after it was unveiled in southeast London last Thursday.

Photos from a local media outlet show a person climbing up a ladder to grab the satellite dish while another person holds the ladder for them.

Further images show a person in shorts walking off with the piece of art.

The other missing artwork of a stretching cat, which had been painted on an old, weathered billboard, was removed from its location in northwest London by contractors because of safety concerns.

Seeing so many Banksy artworks unveiled in the space of a week and a half have led fans and the media to question what they could mean.

The Observer newspaper reported late Saturday that they were designed to “cheer up the public” during a tumultuous* week of riots* in the UK.

POLL

GLOSSARY

• elusive: difficult to find or catch
• Instagram: a social media platform that Banksy uses to confirm whether works of art are done by him
• full stop: end, last in the series
• police sentry box: an enclosure used by police for keeping guard
• translucent: something that is partially see through
• installation: an art work designed to fit into a certain space
• silhouettes: a dark shape and outline against a brighter background
• criminal damage: a public item being altered illegally
• tumultuous: loud, disorderly
• riots: violent public protest by a group of people

EXTRA READING
Banksy mural sprouts in London
Banksy’s touching Christmas reindeer mural
$1.7m Banksy painting self-destructs at auction

QUICK QUIZ
1. What is the theme of Banksy’s latest artworks?
2. In what way is the fish tank artwork different to other works in the series?
3. What is happening in the ninth artwork done at London Zoo?
4. How did two of the nine artworks vanish?
5. How are these artworks different to previous ones by Banksy?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Banksy at your school
Imagine that Banksy could create an artwork at your school. Write a design brief for him. Your brief must include the location for the work and a detailed description of at least three ideas for the artwork.

Time: allow at least 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Communication Design, Visual Arts

2. Extension
Is Banksy’s work criminal damage or art? Write a paragraph that will convince your readers to agree with your opinion on this question.

Time: allow at least 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts

VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there during the event being discussed in the article, or for the interview.

Create a conversation between two characters from the article – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.

Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.