Banksy, British, born 1974
Season’s Greetings, 2018
Banksy placed this mural in the town of Port Talbot, a place where residents know all about air pollution as black dust from local steelworks cover the city (“Banksy’s new artwork in Wales: A comment on air pollution?”, AP News, December 19, 2018). With this mural, Banksy encourages viewers to look beyond their first glance, to step back and see the bigger picture. If you only look at the mural from one side, you will either see just a fire or just a child playing in the snow. When you take a step back and look at the mural in its entirety, you can see how this child is consuming the ashes of the fire, fully taking in toxins. Air pollution from the burning of natural gasses is impacting communities on a global scale, but many people fail to make the connection between how their consumption of fossil fuels impacts others. Banksy is challenging us to think about how our environmental impacts affect others. Label by Lindsey Smith