God bless the Queen! Thanks to her ongoing Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the creatives of Britain have been flushing out freebies for us common folk from the old empire. No complaints at all. We previously wrote about asos‘ free crown printouts featuring designs by Preen, House of Holland, Julie Verhoeven, and Danielle Scut, and now – and we expect loud gasps from you – you can print out an original Banksy for your very own!
Did you gasp?
But this isn’t Banksy’s first work in commemoration of the jubilee. He took to the ol’ stencil and spray paint a couple of weeks ago, producing his most recent work right on Poundland’s outdoor wall in Wood Green, London. Critics were quick to rustle up an academic explanation for the work (it’s child labour, they deduced), but this is what Banksy had to say himself:
“I painted this on the side of Poundland in North London. A shop which sells cheap jubilee merchandise, is located on the route of the Olympic torch relay and was caught using sweatshop labour two years ago. But I only discovered any of this afterwards – I just thought it was a nice coloured wall”.
Child exploitation or highly skilled migrant worker?
Read Banksy’s actual words here, so you know that we didn’t make up that strangely structured sentence. And if you haven’t heard of Banksy before, please click here to meet one of my good friends, Wikipedia.
designtaxi.com leads the way with their printout
Everyone else, get printing. Pictures on Walls are distributing the lovely original, and it’s high-res, so you can blow it up to fairly epic proportions. Print those crowns from asos while you’re at it, and you’ve got yourself some excellent props for a British-themed tea party. Oh, and don’t forget the gin. And tea. And crumpets. And scones. And…
