I took these photos at the beginning of the year while walking through Brick Lane in London. The focus wasn’t on perfect compositions or famous works. Instead, I was paying attention to what caught my eye, what stopped me, and what felt charged. Brick Lane’s walls felt like they were talking—arguing, joking, grieving, warning. Photographing the graffiti and street art became a way of listening.
Rather than analysing each image on its own, this photo essay brings them together as pieces of a broader conversation about politics, identity, power, and belonging—one that plays out in public, on walls anyone can see.
Graffiti and Street Art as Lived Experience
What I See
I see layers, posters pasted over posters, and paint sprayed over older paint. Doors and windows are so covered in images and words that they almost disappear. The walls feel crowded, busy, and restless.
One mural shows The Last Supper painted above the words “The World Is Watching,” over the colours of the Palestinian flag. It’s bold and hard to ignore. Nearby, a pixelated Brick Lane street sign turns something official into something digital and distorted.
I see Donald Trump painted in a frantic, Basquiat-like style—his face twisted into something closer to a symbol than a person. I see a poster of Elon Musk dressed in a German uniform, placed above a Daily Mail front page showing Trump and Epstein. The pairing feels deliberate and unsettling.
Among these loud images, I also see something quiet: a Stik mural of a woman in a niqab holding hands with another figure. No slogans. No explanation. Just two people connected.
Up close, I notice minute details such as stencils and slogans half-hidden by other marks.
“LIKE BRAIN-DAMAGED PIGEONS.”
“LIKE ME, FOLLOW ME. CONSUME ME.”
“VOTE FOR CLOWNS.”
I also see artists at work—spray cans raised, stencils pressed to walls, paint still wet. And I see bodies in the art itself: nude women whose private parts someone obscured, altered after the fact.
Toward the end of the street, I photograph a damaged piece by Palestinian artist Taqi Spateen showing a handcuffed fighter pilot with a winged child. Parts of it are torn or faded, but the image still holds.
What I Feel
Walking through Brick Lane like this feels intense. For instance, the walls don’t feel neutral. They feel emotional. Angry, sarcastic, tired, hopeful, sometimes tender.
The Trump and Musk works make me feel uneasy. They don’t explain themselves, but they don’t need to. They tap into shared fears about power concentrating in the hands of the wealthiest few—the “1%”—and about how politics, money, and media blur together.
The slogans make me feel watched and mocked at the same time. They reflect anxiety about social media, consumption, and being led without thinking. They sound cynical, but also exhausted.
The Stik mural makes me slow down. In a street full of noise, it feels gentle. It also reminds me that visibility itself can have political implications. That showing care, love, or intimacy in public can be an act of resistance.
Watching artists work makes the whole space feel alive. Everything here is still a work in progress. Everything could change tomorrow.
What I Know
These photos teach me that graffiti isn’t just about rebellion or decoration, but how people process what’s happening around them. When formal politics feels distant or broken, walls become a place to speak.
Graffiti reveals political views not through clear arguments, but through symbols, exaggeration, humour, and repetition. It expresses what people fear, what they’re angry about, and what they want others to notice.
I also learn that meaning builds over time. What stays on the wall isn’t always what’s best, but what resonates—sometimes only for a short while.
And I learn that public space matters. Because anyone can see this work, it belongs to everyone. No ticket, no permission, no algorithm deciding what you should look at.
Why Photos of Graffiti and Street Art in Brick Lane Matter
Photographing graffiti and street art matters because the work itself is temporary. Paint fades. Posters tear. Walls get cleaned or covered again. Thus, photos become a record of what people were thinking and feeling at a specific moment.
Brick Lane’s graffiti and street art don’t offer neat solutions. Instead, they send signals—of resistance, humour, anger, care, and hope. They remind us that politics isn’t only debated in parliaments or online. It’s written on walls, noticed in passing, and argued over in public.
In an age of polished narratives and controlled images, these walls stay messy and unfiltered.
So, next time you walk down Brick Lane, slow down.
Thank you for looking. These images document graffiti and street art in Brick Lane, London, and sharing them helps keep the conversation alive.