A heritage railway on the edge of Bristol has sparked controversy after it commissioned three of the city’s most famous street artists to cover one of its vintage carriages in graffiti as if it were a New York subway carriage in the 1970s.
Why? Heritage railways have a unique selling point - nostalgia, a longing for the good old days when grafitti would have been unknown? Whywould anyone want to piss all over that?
But there has been quite the backlash against the Avon Valley Railway when they revealed the project on their social media. The railway operates as a charity, and runs steam trains up and down a former line across the eastern edge of Bristol that was closed down in the Beeching cuts of the 1960s.
The firm attempted to rein in the furore that they deliberately caused for no clear benefit in the first place:
Avon Valley Railway had to reassure heritage railway enthusiasts that the windows of the carriage was covered with latex first so the paint can just be peeled off, that the carriage is yet to be restored by the volunteers at the charity so nothing was damaged - and the paint will actually help protect the carriage until it is restored.
“We were delighted to host ‘Inkie’, ‘Jody’ and ‘Cheo’ to our station site at Bitton,” said Mark Hill, the general manager at Avon Valley Railway.
Why? It's as if Sciaperelli attempted to chase the clientele of Primark...
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Addressing the widespread concern that this might encourage ‘copycat’ defacement of other heritage railway stock (and with a touching faith in the conscientious integrity and good citizenship of the ‘street art’ fraternity),
“Avon Valley Railway would like to state that that the public SHOULD NOT use this artwork as a ‘green light’ to apply their own street art to the precious and irreplaceable collection of vintage locomotives, carriages, rolling stock and buildings.”
Meanwhile, one ‘Paul Berkman commented that he was ‘laughing’ at the people saying this would give a ‘green light’ to graffiti artists to target heritage trains. “Graffiti artists have always managed to find plenty of coaches to spray up without any kind of green light,” he said.‘
I’m sure that’s a great comfort to the custodians of Britain’s steam railway heritage.
I think the correct term for this deliberate vandalism to "get down wid da kiddzzzz" and to appear more "relevant" "inclusive" and of course "diverse" is ENSHITIFICATION, turning everything into lowest common denominator crap to supposedly appeal to the masses, and nothing to do with yet another woke hijacked, leftist charridee that's about to alienate its supporters as have so many other charities and to which I refuse to contribute or support.
Still, I'm sure some fading "artiste" or media Luvvie will come out in support to garner some publicity for themselv........ Errrrr. for the charity.
Personally, I find this "art" to be bothered off-putting and hostile. What the hell are they thinking. Heritage rail fans want authenticity and nostalgia, not to have their senses assaulted by what on any other setting is criminal damage.
Here's a suggestion for them. A bit radical, but hear me out.... How about, instead of covering this heritage coach with crap, just getting on with painting and restoring it now, rather than give us that "it will protect it" b*ll*cks, as all of that garbage will cost money and volunteers' time, removing said crap to apply the new finish.
The utter garbage people come out with to justify and make excuses is truly mind-numbing.
Hopefully they'll read this and be "offended" to which my response is "what the hell did you expect?"
I think I need aie down in a darkened room as such utter drivel raises my blood-pressure to steam turbine driving levels.
I hate to be the predictor of events, but I predict that should this Idiocy happen, other "street artists" attracted by all of the social media publicity, may decide that they want a piece of the action and turn up unannounced and overnight to add their "art" to the rest of Avon Valley's rolling stock and buildings, making them all look "relevant" and reflecting the continuing shitholification of the rest of the country. Should Avon and Somerset Plods do nothing, I will state the bloody obvious. You brought this on yourselves. Well done. You slapped the paying public in the face and wasted their money. Now suck it up. You read it here first.
I was hoping the twist would be that they could compare the 'work' to graffiti around the town and arrest the little bastards!
Watchman’s prediction is borne out by a French town we know well which started hosting a biennial ‘Street Art Festival’ a few years ago - demonstrations, workshops and the creation of massive murals in the modern part of the town centre and on the HLM apartment blocks (equivalent to council housing).
Since then, residential and historic areas around the town, including a medieval church buildings on the UNESCO World Heritage list, have been increasingly daubed with unsightly ‘tags’ (one particularly prolific little scrote signs himself ‘dream X’, presumably in the belief that an English name makes him extra cool).
It is not 'street art' it is vandalism.
I suspect they had to show diversity as part of a grant application.
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