Hakkala School Goes International: Class 9E in London: Day 5

King's Cross Station

King´s Cross railway station and platform 9 3/4 (Harry Potter)

We went to see the famous railway station from the Harry Potter movie series, which the kids used to get to the railway station which took them to Hogwarts. After we had seen the platform, we took a look around the souvenir shop just next to it and everything was awfully expensive. After that, we had to wait an hour or so for our teachers to sort out our tickets. Some time later, we were on our merry way to get some lunch.

Niko and Vilho

Street Art and Graffiti Tour

Our guide Jessica took us for a two-hour street art and graffiti tour in East London. Comments from the group:¨

1. According to Jessica, what's street art and what is graffiti?

Graffiti is more spontaneous, unplanned and is solely made with spray paint, while street art uses everything else. Brushes, different paint and a full plan on what to paint, but on an artistic level, there is no difference between street art and graffiti.

Vilho and Niko

2. What is legal and what is not? How do many East London shop owners view street art?

Some of the graffities and the street arts are totally legal. If you spray paint a picture into a abanded biulding it is actually illegal, but no one really cares so it is kind of legal. No police man or neighbour come to you and stop what you are doing because no one cares about the old biuldings. But if you spray paint into a building which is owned by the goverment or by a private owner, it is absolutely illegal.

Katariina and Riina

3. What did Jessica say about derelict houses? Why don't the owners have them repaired? What opportunities does this open to street artists?

Derelict houses are houses that just sit around and nobody lives in them. The owners won't repair them because nobody lives in them and it doesn't matter what condition they are in. The only reason they own them is because the value of the lot the house stands on rises in value over time. Street artists can cover the houses with street art because the owner doesn't care what happens to the house.

Mikael and Jussi

4. Are there certain themes, social or other, that are more popular than others?

We saw many beautiful work of art. Most of them were graffite and less of them were beautiful paintings. Street art has many different topics. General topics are stencil graffiti, wheatpasted poster art or sticker art and street installation. Usually the most popular works of art are big, colorful and beautiful paintings.

Elli and Reetta

5. What did Jessica tell us about the "stick pictures"?

Stick pictures are art glued on the wall with special type of glue. The glue is made by mixing flower and water. If done with correct mixing ratio the glue will make the paper last very long and the paper will remain on the wall for years. Stick pictures are one form of street art and its pros are it takes 2 minutes to put in the wall while spray painted art can take days to make.
- Veikko and Vili

6. What did we learn about the financial situation of some street artists? Do they all do street art because they are not good enough for proper galleries? Please give some names.

7. Until today, we have only seen rather posh areas of London. Did you see a lot of street art near, say Tate Modern or the British Museum? Why or why not, in your opinion?

We saw a lot of street art at east side of London. East side is kind of a slum area. You don't see any street art near by significant buildings like the British Museum or Tate Modern. At those areas it's illegal and not wanted. At east side street art is valued if you do it to abandoned apartments.

Elmiira and Josefiina

8. One of the artists whose works we saw today has a university degree in biology and another was heavily influenced by Picasso. Can you guess which pictures were created by them? Analyse the pictures.

9. Street art used to be defined as "painting" on walls etc. We saw many other forms of street art than just painting. Give examples and analyse the change.