The best thing about visiting the East End is that it is a haven for street art and you will always spot new art on each visit.
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Saturday, January 18, 2025
Staving Off Darkness: Squidsoup's Lost in Light Exhibition
Chasing bright lights and illuminations has become one of my favourite winter pastimes in England as we seek to stave off the long, grey winter. Following on from our adventures at the Gravesham Light Festival, the Tonbridge Winter Light Trail and the Canary Wharf Winter Lights, we decided to head off to the "Lost In Light" exhibition in Shoreditch this year.
"Lost in Light" is an immersive digital art exhibition that invites visitors to step into a world where light, sound and technology converge to create an otherworldly experience. Curated by the innovative collective Squidsoup, the exhibition explores the boundaries of perception and interaction, offering a series of stunning installations. This ethereal, multi-sensory adventure blurs the lines between art and technology, providing an experience that is both introspective and awe-inspiring. The venue was previously an illegal rave venue in Shoreditch.
There were five rooms, each with a different theme and vision, and each kitted out with bean bags and places to sit so that visitors could spend as long as they wanted, just gazing at the lights and relaxing. It was a very trippy experience!
Circular Echoes
"A circle is a symbol of completeness, wholeness, the centre… but it can also be a boundary"
This room featured a series of glowing, elevated orbs arranged in a circle around people lying on beanbags in the centre.
Infinite
"Infinite presents a spatial orchestra, constructed from a composition of notes scattered around the space in illuminated clusters of light"
This was one of my favourite rooms. The wall murals were impressive, the shiny floor reflected the lights,and there were distorted mirrors on the walls too.
Three Volumes
We went into this room twice and it was a lot of fun. It was a triptych of three suspended cubes of pulsating lights that were illuminated at different times, the effect of which was a different landscape every few seconds. Stephen lay on a beanbag beneath the closest cube and had to practically be dragged out of there.
Sola
Sola creates a shifting, radiant environment that evokes the energy and movement of the sun itself. It felt very 1989 watching what looked like a wall of televisions.
Submergence
"Submergence places us directly inside a matrix, reminiscent of the middle of an exploding screen".
This room was huge and proved to be most people’s favourite.
"Lost In Light" is an fantastic experience and photos cannot do justice to the synergic effects of the pulsating lights, electronic music and overall ambiance. Highly recommended.
The exhibition is running until 2 February 2025 and tickets are £12.50 plus booking fee for adults.
118 Curtain Road
Shoreditch
EC2A 3AY
Wednesday, May 18, 2022
Street Art Snapshots From An Unseen Tour of Shoreditch
I love street art and the east end of London has some of the best street art in the world. There are many excellent tours, some of which I've written about here under the street art tag, but I'd always wanted to go on an Unseen Tour. The Unseen Tour model is impressive; the guides are formerly homeless individuals who take people on tours of their home neighbourhoods. Unseen Tours are a not-for-profit social enterprise and sixty percent of the ticket price goes to the guide.
We joined Henri on the Unseen Tour of Shoreditch and these are my favourite sights.
The photo above features a fake blue plaque to Ed Seymour, the inventor of the aerosol spray paint can. All hail Ed!
Shoreditch is experiencing heavy gentrification with the area becoming much too expensive for average Londoners to live in. It would absolutely suit developers if all the poor people left quietly.
This stencil really resonated with me (I think it's a stencil). Depression is a huge part of my life but something I'm learning to work alongside and accommodate. Sometimes we simply need to be kind to ourselves and allow ourselves to have off days.
Interesting appropriation of one of the most evil dictators in history.
I loved this piece. I wish I could have gotten up to a higher vantage point to take a better photo of it.
This was a very funky piece and it took up over six metres of a wall.
Cereal killer, a scathing indictment of a place that charges £6 for a bowl of cereal. What utterly needless gimmick marketing.
I have no idea what this was all about but it was very trippy and reminded me of old London texts and legends.
Do not trust robots. Say no more.
I love Phlegm's work and was delighted to discover this piece on the Foundry.
Visit the Unseen Tours website to book a tour.
Saturday, January 15, 2022
The Art of Banksy Exhibition, London
One thing I've learned about the new world is that we spend an awful lot of time planning and looking forward to things through delays, false starts and eventual happenings. This was especially true of London's The Art of Banksy exhibition. I recall waiting a very long time for the exhibition to finally open in May 2021 but by the time it did, I had much more important things on my mind as I lost my father in July. Not going to lie, last year was a tough year but it's strengthened my desire to live every minute to the full and to celebrate life in honour of those who have left us.
It was around November that my lovely friend Sarah reminded me that we promised to go to The Art of Banksy together and fresh from my fabulous day out at The Beautiful People exhibition, I went ahead and bought us tickets.
It will surprise exactly no-one to learn that I loved the exhibition. Street Art features so regularly on this blog that it has its own label and Banksy was one of my first loves. You learn very little about the elusive street artist himself but you do learn about the famous and often notorious works he has completed and the exhibitions he's put on. This exhibition was very much unauthorised but Banksy's touch was unmissable.
These were my favourite pieces.
Visit Historic Palestine
Girl With Balloon Tee
Love Is In The Air
I Fought The Law
No Ball Games
Authorised Graffiti Area
Album covers, posters and magazine covers
Laugh Now
Brace Yourself
This last one was interesting. When Banksy released his Oscar-nominated film Exit Through the Gift Shop, there was already a band with that name. They agreed to change their band name to Brace Yourself and sign over the trademark to Banksy and he painted them this backdrop as a thank you.
I don't agree with everything Banksy has done. He infamously staged the Barely Legal exhibition in Los Angeles in 2006 which featured a live, painted Indian elephant. Not cool. For the most part, I think he's one of the most important activist artists of our time and I'm dying to know who he is.
The The Art of Banksy exhibition has been extended to May 2022. Tickets cost £25 Monday to Friday and £29.50 on weekends with concessions and family tickets.
50 Earlham Street
London
WC2H 9LJ
Saturday, April 30, 2016
Spectacular Street Art on The Alternative London Walking Tour
Life in London rushes by with the skyline changing on a daily basis but nowhere is that change as rapid as in the East End. At the western edge of Tower Hamlets, an area known for its socio-economic difficulties and generations of immigrants, the City’s relentless development overshadows an area that is changing in its own way too.
The first time I went on an Alternative London Tour was five years ago and I cannot believe how much the area has changed. The streets are different with new restaurants and trendy boutique stores opening but a completely new layer of street art exists today. Looking back on my photos from that day, I recognised only three pieces of art that exist to this day.
Earlier this month, Stephen, Sarah and I signed up for an Alternative London Tour with tour guide Keir and we had a fantastic time. To show you just how much new street art there is, I’ll share 13 new pieces along with 3 that have featured on this blog before.
A portrait of Nooshinism by Paul Don Smith, located on Wilkes Street.
Ballerina by Neoh, painted over by a very naughty young tagger called 5 Foot.
One of my favourite pieces by Stik, which I previously featured in Stick figures, Aliens and Wild Creatures in East London.
This phenomenal mural by Dale Grimshaw is located on Hanbury Street, just off Brick Lane and was painted in support of the Free West Papua Campaign. This was both Sarah’s and my favourite piece of the tour.
Roa’s Crane has featured on this blog before but the new work by Martin Ron hasn’t. It depicts a man doing a hand stand on one arm and it is pretty impressive. These works were both allowed by the owner of the building.
The artist at the bottom of this photo is Space Invader and this is quite an old piece. You’ll see a brand new mosaic by him at the end of the post.
Klet is rising in fame (or notoriety) in urban areas around the world based on his cheeky amendments to street signs. This cheeky addition on the corner of Brick Lane and Quaker Street just happens to promote the Alternative London Tour too!
I quite liked this mural by Zabou featuring a pair of spray-paint wielding street art heroines.
I loved this work by Ben Slow who you might recall because he was the street artist who took us on the last Alternative London Tour I went on in 2012. This piece is a memorial for Charlie Burns who lived on Bacon Street in the East End for his entire life. When he eventually passed away in 2015 at the age of 97, this mural was done outside one of his propoerties. If you look closely, you can see the reflection of Truman Breweries in his eyes.
All too soon, we were on the home stretch of the tour. Here is a very interesting piece by a female street artist. I’m almost certain Keir said she was called Sarky & Bitches but I can’t find anything about her online. Nevertheless, the artist encountered this derelict building and went home and created her devil she-cats in the studio before returning, slipping them under the bars and nailing them to the wall. Pretty ingenious.
I really liked this lifelike vampire by The Conspiracy.
The lovelocks in Shoreditch are like all others but I enjoyed this lock with a tiny piece of street art on it. I’m a tiny bit annoyed because I’m almost certain I know who the artist is but I can’t figure it out.
Sarah and I both enjoyed spotting works by this artist Alo and we especially enjoyed this work called “Numb”.
Our final spot of the day was this brand new gentleman invader by Space Invader. It is interesting to see how much his style has changed over the years.
This is the third Alternative London Walking Tour that I’ve joined so needless to say, I enjoy them and I would very much recommend them. The tours are operate on a Pay What You Want basis and you pay however much you thought the tour was worth at the end of the tour. Tours take place from Monday to Saturday and you must book ahead on the Alternative London website to secure a spot. The company also offer East London Bike Tours and Street Art Tour and Graffiti Workshops.
Which was your favourite piece? Have you ever been on a street art tour in another city?
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© 2008 -
Mandy Southgate | Emm in London