Street Art and Politics

Politics can be so draining. The never-ending, ongoing jargon about how to handle a crisis that may or may not be any of our business (or is it always our business?) that’s typically only based more on loyalty to one’s political party and less on if one actually agrees with the strategy floods every media outlet. Every day. But then comes that breath of fresh air. You know, the one that makes you sit right by your opened window in you favorite arm chair placed at the perfect angle so that you never get too chilly. That breeze is graffiti artist, Banksy.

Syrians have fled to the Calais refugee camp (known as “The Jungle”) in the northern part of France where they are attempting to rebuild their lives and/or are awaiting the world to decided where they’re allowed to go next. Banksy breezed through Calais, chose a wall in the refugee camp, and painted the late Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs holding a dated Mac and a black trash bag.

If the painting makes you scratch your head, don’t worry. Banksy, who speaks minimally, issued the following statement (I’m certain for clarity purposes) to the New York Times:  “Steve Jobs was the son of a Syrian migrant. Apple is the world’s most profitable company, it pays over $7 billion a year in taxes—and it only exists because they allowed in a young man from Homs.”

It gets better.

French painter, Théodore Géricault’s, painted The Raft of the Medusa, a dramatic oil painting of real-life events of persons afloat a flimsy raft trying to survive the aftermath of the destruction of their 154-foot ship launched by the French navy in 1810. Only 15 of the 147 people survived the 13 days at sea. (See Gericault’s painting here.) Banksy, with that genius mind of his, give us the remix – a painting of a raft overflowing with migrants attempting to wave down a cruise ship passing by in the distance. The caption reads: “We’re not all in the same boat.”

See more from this series on Banksy’s site at www.banksy.co.uk.