Wish Upon a Star: Banksy’s Identical Christmas Murals Shine a Light on Youth Homelessness, London
Banksy’s Christmas murals brought a poignant image to London in December 2025: two children lying on the ground, looking towards the sky, one pointing upwards as though searching for a star. Appearing beneath the Centre Point tower and in Queen’s Mews, Bayswater, the identical images take on different meanings through their surroundings. Revealed just days before Christmas, they draw attention to the contrast between childhood wonder, London’s extraordinary wealth and the realities of youth homelessness.
Centre Point: The First Banksy Christmas Mural
The first mural appeared in front of the Centre Point building, often referred to as the “North Star”, near Tottenham Court Road. Two children lie on the ground, one arm extended, pointing skyward. The image immediately resonated with long-standing themes in Banksy’s practice: visibility, homelessness, and the politics of urban space. Read more in our coverage here.
Location 1, Centre Point. Image copyright Marrosi
The well-known youth homelessness charity, Centrepoint, was founded in 1969 by the Reverend Kenneth Leech. It was named specifically after the building as a protest against the “affront” of a massive skyscraper sitting empty while people were sleeping on the streets nearby.
The ‘centred’ point of the child in reference to the building anchors the scene firmly in contemporary London, shifting the mural from the luxury apartments to child homelessness. This backdrop matters. In the UK today, an estimated 4.5 million children, 31% of all children, are living in poverty and one young person becoming homeless every four minutes. For many youth, Christmas is not a season of abundance or wonder, but one of absence: no presents, no festive meals.
Against this context, the act of lying on the pavement and looking up becomes quietly political. The children in Banksy’s mural are not romanticised figures; they exist within an urban economy where inequality is structural, visible, and increasingly normalised.
Location 1, Centre Point. Image copyright Marrosi
Queens Mews: Repetition and the Emergence of a Star
Now, the familiar image reappears in a new location in a second identical mural. Painted on the back of an abandoned building in Queens Mews, Bayswater, the mural is a deliberate repetition of the earlier scene. Banksy shares the work at night on his instagram account, when its meaning comes into focus.
Location 2, Queens Mews. Image copyright Banksy
In the photograph, perspective does the work. The children are no longer pointing abstractly upwards; their gesture aligns precisely with a single red light on the surrounding scaffolding. Through this alignment, the light is transformed, by the viewer, into a star.
Location 2, Queens Mews. Image copyright Banksy
This is the mural’s quiet genius, the star is not painted. By allowing the environment to complete the image, Banksy extends the artwork beyond the wall itself, connecting place, time, and perception.
Location 2, Queens Mews. Image copyright Banksy
Banksy’s Christmas Murals: Looking Towards the Stars
Seen together, Banksy’s Christmas murals reveal a visual connection between the two London locations. At Centre Point, the illuminated windows of the luxury apartments resemble stars scattered across the night sky, while at Queens Mews, a single red light on a distant crane becomes the star towards which the children point. In both settings, the surrounding city becomes part of the artwork, with the full significance of the imagery emerging after dark.
Yet beneath these stars, the children remain lying on the ground. The contrast is particularly poignant at Centre Point, where the wealth represented by the luxury apartments stands against the building’s historical association with homelessness. Appearing just before Christmas, the two murals invite reflection on childhood, hope and the inequality that continues to shape life in the capital and worldwide.
The connection to Centrepoint, the youth homelessness charity whose name originated in protest against the once-empty tower, adds another layer of meaning to the work.
Support the work of Centrepoint by donation here.
Updated with verified imagery from Banksy’s official channels.