XR Lambeth decided to go with the flow and be inspired in situ and celebrate the DIY accessible approach (nothing to do with being last minute!), which led to a beautiful cacophony of “art” pieces!
We focused on bus stops in South London, our playground and repurposed around 30 bus stop panels, revisiting classics of subvertising as well as expressing our creativity.
Classic #1: we simply removed the existing ad and stuck a thought provoking message on the back frame instead. We also added an envelope with a message to the outside panel. Messages were a mix of comments and stats about the evil of advertising and also some nice compliments to the readers.
Classic #2: using our well-loved Posca pens,we added our messages straight onto the ad, calling out various ills such as consumerism or the patriarchy.
Original #1: we reused and repurposed the ads we took down (we are an environmental movement after all!). Conveniently, PG tips’ ad colours are those of the Palestinian flag! We also had fun riding our cargo bike with Elvis before installing him next to a speech bubble, prompting the audience to reflect on his love for agro-forestry.
Original #2: South London’s litter is seen as an inconvenience, but on that day we saw it as an opportunity to give it a second life (again, environmental movement!) and include it to our contemporary pieces, giving centre stage to banana skins and other discarded items and prompting the audience to yet again reflect.
BONUS: we were very lucky to arrive to our first bus stop as the Decaux man was changing the panels so we patiently waited for him to finish before liberating the ads again, probably breaking the record of shortest lived us stop ad!
