Earlier this month, street artist and activist Banksy made headlines and history once again with his latest performance art prank. After his famous work, “Girl With Balloon,” sold at auction for a whopping $1.4 million, a mechanism inside the frame went off, shredding the piece in an act of self-destruction.
This stunt can have multiple meanings, as Banksy often uses his art to comment on such structures as capitalism, power imbalances, and corruption.
Wrapped up in the Banksy frenzy ourselves, we started questioning art and its subjective worth. What makes art valuable? What qualifies as art? In what way can art be used or manipulated to impact our everyday lives? We live in a world saturated by advertisements, media and marketing targeting and manipulating us to be passive consumers. In his letter on advertising, Banksy urges us to fight back against the perpetual noise that is thrown at us. As I took a walk down Sunset Blvd during my lunch break and contemplated this idea, I looked up to see the barrage of billboards and slogans aimed at me–telling me I’m not skinny enough or pretty enough, urging me to buy their product so I too, can look like the model on the billboard. Thinking about what we are subjected to daily by multimillion dollar companies is eye opening, as is Banksy’s take on copyright laws and advertising.
But how do we fight back? How do we turn these constant messages into something useful and positive in our daily lives? Can we turn the focus from you’re not good enough to you are more than enough?
Banksy urges, “any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.”
So let’s take back the power. We got the ball rolling by taking some campaigns and slogans you might recognize, and turning them into campaigns for self love and acceptance.
Join us by creating your own better slogan and use the hashtag #banksymademedoit. What we need is more self love in the world. Let’s saturate the world with our mission.
De Beers: A Diamond is Forever becomes Self Worth Is Forever
Got Milk becomes Got Self Love?
Kit Kat's Have a break, have a Kit Kat becomes Have a break, take a deep breath.
Maybelline's classic, Maybe she's born with it, Maybe it's Maybelline becomes Maybe she worked hard on herself to get here.
McDonald's I'm Loving It becomes I'm Loving Me!
Nike's Just Do It, becomes Just Feel It.
Have a campaign that you want to take over? Email us at hello(at)fredandfar.com and we'll make the graphic for you and share it.