In his latest work he was inspired by “Les Miserables”, to pass his own message on the use of tear gas by the French police in the refugee camp Jungle in Calais. And the British authorities rushed to cover it up.
An introduction to Bansky, whose identity remains unknown, would be superfluous. His recent works, however, are an ironic look on the refugee crisis, just like his latest mural opposite the French Embassy in Knightbridge, portraying the girl from “Les Miserables” by Hugo, covered in CS, the gas used by the French police against the refugees in the camp in Calais. For the first time, there is a QR code next to it and once scanned, it takes you to the video of the tear gas attack of January 5th:
The British authorities, however, rushed to cover it up, under the pretext that they wanted to preserve it (!) using the same argument of the French authorities which, a few days earlier, had declared – about Banksy’s murals in the refugee camp in Calais – that they planned to protect them with glass or transparent plastic panels! Actually, Natacha Bouchart, the mayor of Calais, had told a local newspaper that “it is very good, it has a message.” Recognition of Banksy’s art or diplomatic trick? We shall see.
These murals in the camp of Calais portray Steve Jobs as a refugee (as Banksy himself once wrote on his site: “Apple exists only because US authorities allowed in a young man from Homs, Syria”), a shipwreck with survivors – his own variant of the famous painting “The Raft of the Medusa” by Theodore Gericault (“We are not all on the same boat” Banksy said) and a child with a vulture on a telescope, trying to find Britain.
Sources: bbc, telegraph
