I have never seen so many smiling people in London.
Banksy, the most famous unknown in the world, decided that the wall of the building where I live was the perfect setting for his most recent mural.
Since the painting appeared on Sunday, people have been crowding around my window, smiling at me and looking at me with blank faces. “Can I go into the garden and take a photo?”
So I assume that Banksy is mine, so I tell them yes, take all the photos they want.
I have also never seen so many Londoners so talkative.
I’m used to seeing them very serious on the subway, avoiding eye contact in an elevator or with their heads hidden in the rain, suddenly I have a bunch of strangers bombarding me with questions.
“Have you seen Banksy? How does it feel to have your own Banksy? What does the work mean? Does it bother you that we are here? Are they going to raise your rent?”
Some are bolder and get straight to the point: “Are you Banksy?”
I don’t say yes, but I don’t say no either.
Others, with a mixture of kindness and modesty, give bills to their small children who come running to my window to give it to me as bribe for allowing them a nice memory.
At that moment I think regarding what I pay for renta and that with this Banksy work you might shoot yourself, but following a moment, I am filled with dignity and tell them no, thank you, that they better use the ticket to buy sweets in the store next door.
Someone, clearly with better business instincts than me, suggested I put the apartment on AirBnB: “Beautiful apartment decorated with an original Banksy”, something like a BanksyBnB.
A cherry tree that bears apples
No, no vi a Banksy. I wasn’t even home when he painted the mural.
Everything indicates that it happened in the early hours of Sunday morning, so my consolation is that, even if I had been at home, everything probably happened so quickly that I wouldn’t have even noticed.
I got home following noon and there were already people taking photos, making videos, and, of course, speculating regarding the work.
Several noted that the mural coincided with St. Patrick’s Day (March 17), a celebration where the color green prevails.
Also that he used the same green color that is used on the social housing signs in Islington, the north London neighborhood where the mural is.
On Monday, the artist published some photos on his Instagram that confirm that he is the author of the workbut apart from that, the rest is just theories.
It seems that Banksy, whatever that means, used a extinguisher to shoot the paint once morest the cracked wall.
The real tree is a cherry tree and it is quite sick, it looks dead, so some say Banksy revived the foliage with the paint.
And the girl, or boy?, holds a hose like those used for fumigation. A message regarding nature?
The work is still alive, some people come with apples and put them around the trunk, as if they had fallen from the branches. So Banksy created the only cherry tree that grows apples.
If you put together the clues of the work and the ways in which people interact with it, the interpretations are infinite, as happens with all the artist’s interventions.
15 minutes of fame
Now my house is a tourist attraction.
As I write this, I take breaks and people hand me their cell phones so I can I took photos of them.
In less than an hour I gave interviews to local, Japanese, German media and students who would soon be colleagues.
An Australian boy gave me an instant photo, I sent greetings to the followers of a Mexican woman who was broadcasting live on TikTok and a Colombian woman, like me, told me that in my place, she would already be selling arepas and beers.
A Norwegian woman, who was only going to be in London for 8 hours, decided that her priority was to come see the mural.
This is art
Yesterday, following 6 months of living in this apartment, thanks to the mural I spoke for the first time with my neighbora Somali who is now concerned regarding his privacy with so many people around.
And so I have been for three days, meeting people from various countries, receiving congratulations as if I had some merit in all this, greeting like a beauty queen and explaining my opinions regarding the mural: “I’m no expert, but I think…”
I am happy, I don’t know if I will still be happy on the weekend when a horde of tourists decide that following seeing Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, the next stop will be my apartment.
This mural appeared just at the end of the northern winter, when the city begins to fill with color and everyone It improves our mood.
So for me this has been the best start to spring. Thanks to a enigmatic geniusa dying tree and a ruined wall, I have surrounded myself with cool people and I have felt that even though I am an immigrant, I am really part of this community.
That’s art, I guess.
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