Disappointed that Dismaland is all the way in Western Super Mare and you’re stuck in London? Well, if you catch the tube or the bus at any point in the next few days then you’ll get your own taste of Banksy, as he’s started a guerrilla poster campaign at some tube and bus stops to protest the DSEI arms fair taking place at the ExCel centre this week.
The DSEI arms fair is an exhibition where over 1500 weapons manufacturers come together to sell their products – anything from rifles to tanks. The Dismaland exhibition contained many pieces of art regarding the arms trade, so curator Gavin Grindon said that these protests were a natural progression:
Images VIA
The posters appeared today to commemorate the opening of DSEI, who don’t seem to have done much advertising of their own.
Most of the posters are the work of a guerrilla artist collective called Special Forces Group. These guys used ‘Ad Space Hack Packs’ to get into the bus stop advertising spaces and switch around the posters in there. These are a £6 set of Allen keys which can get into one third of bus stops on the planet – they’re available at Dismaland and already 2000 sets have been sold.
Of course, TFL aren’t happy about this development and are going to spoil all the fun at the first opportunity that they get:
This is not an authorised advert. It is fly-posting and therefore an act of vandalism which we take extremely seriously. We have instructed our contractor to remove any found on our network.
I suppose you can’t really be that surprised about that though can you? If you manage to catch one of the posters before they get taken down make sure you take a picture and share it to raise awareness.
If you enjoyed these, then check out these fake tube posters from a few years ago, which aren’t as political but are way funnier.
