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The BUILDHOLLYWOOD family of JACK, JACK ARTS and DIABOLICAL has collaborated with curator Olly Walker and artist Aida Wilde for their latest Your Space Or Mine project which gives artists and creatives a platform on the street.
The collaborative project involves Walker curating the space and Wilde working with Dr.D aka Subvertiser to hand-paint a large-scale mural located in East London’s creative hub of Shoreditch, featuring a bold message in response to the role that street art has played in the gentrification of our cities.
“Graffiti, street art, urban art, urban contemporary, mural art, whatever title is currently in use to define art on the streets, we must remember the roots of this movement and the work and dedication of a few early pioneers through to new artists who, before you got paid to do your art, invested their time and gave us their art for free. The streets should still be free to view gallery space. Working with Aida has given me the opportunity to work with an artist that I have admired for a long time. An artist who has a strong voice and who has the talent to be able to say things that others fear to say or would not be able to get the job done in such a clever and proficient way.” – Olly Walker (Curator)
Wilde is an Iranian born, London based printmaker, visual artist and educator who uses art as a tool for social change. Her powerful screen-printed installations and social commentary posters have been featured on city streets around the world in cities such as London, Berlin and New York. Most famous for her colourful slogan paste-ups, some featuring light-hearted topics, with others raising awareness around sensitive subjects such as gentrification, education and women’s rights.
The work for the collaboration features the message: “DADDY I WANT TO PAINT A LOUSY MURAL IN SHOREDITCH!”. The imposing, tongue-in-cheek typeset black and bold against a white and pink background is designed to disrupt and entertain, forcing people to stop and take notice.
There are many elements in her past and current ideas and concepts that have gone into creating this piece of work. The “Daddy” series of works began five years ago, loosely based around the character Veruca Salt from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a commentary on commodification, consumerism and signs of gentrification.
The amalgamation of the word “Lousy” derives from a series of posters created around the same time and is inspired by tacky souvenir shop slogans found in tourist shops around the world such as ‘I went to Camden and all I got was a lousy t-shirt’. Wilde used to print and paste-up various “Lousy” Slogans in each city that she visited when she travelled.
“I’d never imagined my “Daddy” and “Lousy” series of works coming together like this, but I think for this artwork, it makes perfect sense as I am really trying to explore the idea of where we are really going and moving towards in terms of planning, beautifying and navigating through our city with street art, especially having come out of a long nationwide lockdown. The artwork on the wall is a piece of responsive commentary and the heart of the message is, slow down and look at the bigger picture. What are we looking at? As artists working on the streets, what are we trying to do here? I want us to be more conscious of what we’re putting out there, who we are working for and what the wider implications of what we are creating is having in our communities and their attitudes. This has been my ongoing work about gentrification and it impacts on the lives of the generations that have been there before us. Artists have done such a grand job with raising property prices that we’ve even priced ourselves out of the places that we once used to live and paint in!” Aida Wilde
The mural can be found in Shoreditch, East London…
