Politics vs street art

Being a hobby photographer documenting the street art scene in Bergen, I often stumble upon pieces with a strong political message.

The most famous street artist from Bergen nowadays is AFK. It’s an acronym for “Away from keyboard”. He often makes political artwork and his prints sell out in no time. Politically he is quite to the left.

Many of the artists know each other and occationally they get together and donate artworks for various charity events and organizations, like Aesthetic Prosthetic in Gaza and the Norwegian Cancer Society. During covid they also got together and decorated the local psychiatric ward for free.

In November 2022 AFK painted the political piece “The boy with the striped pyjamas” in my neighbourhood, in a quite dark and empty street down by the water. The piece is inspired by the film of the same name. This piece was actually painted one year before the terrorist attacks in Israel on October the 7th 2023, but for some strange reason this piece went viral on social media with people believing it was Banksy who had recently painted it on the West Bank! It recieved a lot of criticism from Israelis and Americans who thought he was being anti-semitic.

But well, to criticise Israel’s warfare isn’t necessarily being anti-semitic, in my opinion.