Banksy's new street painting opens discussion about the decline of urban trees | Climate and environment

There's a constant buzz these days on Hornsey Road, the street in Finsbury Park in north London. Animals of curious people, journalists and com.instagrammers Accumulate The film revolves around the new work of street artist Banksy, which has revolutionized this multicultural neighbourhood. Two Japanese girls taking selfies, a group of British girls dressed like the cover Vogue magazine They take turns taking pictures of each other. A BBC journalist searches for any statement among the group of curious people who have come to the neighbourhood.

In the midst of the spontaneous circus, a beautiful, noble, heavily pruned cherry tree—topped off, is the correct expression, for its crown has disappeared—stands like a kind of iron candelabra in the middle of the urban landscape.

Banksy painting — artist claimed authorship On his Instagram account– Specifically aims to condemn sacrilege. On the white side wall of an apartment complex located directly behind the tree (a surface any graffiti artist would covet), the author painted a huge green spot sliding down the wall like mossy vines. In one corner, a woman appears to be clearing non-existent foliage from the now disfigured branches.

“Little by little, I started to feel terrified,” she wrote on her pages: “My heart breaks for the tribe of journalists who were recording the scene and the crowd of curious onlookers who were muttering and raising their mobile phones to take the picture.” guardian Writer Gio Iozzi, who founded the Urban Tree Defense Organization Haringey tree protectors. “All this chatter focused on the work of a human being has overlooked the fundamental question about what happened: How could a mature urban tree be pruned so hard, to the point where it is unable to regenerate again? Or to thrive? In all its splendor when spring comes?” asks Iosi.

Islington County, to which the neighborhood belongs, confirms that the tree, which is now between 40 and 50 years old, has entered the stage of decay. It was sick and had been damaged by fungi.

What is with you Thor treesThe company that carried out the pruning operation confirmed to the BBC that municipal officials gave them instructions “with the smallest details” about how they wanted to carry out the work. Lawrence Thor Stephen explains that the topping technique helps ensure that the branches that grow upward in this species do not grow too large and could fall on a walker due to tree disease.

It is likely that Banksy intended to denounce the disappearance of nature in the urban landscape, by linking his work to the tree in question. By moving away a few meters from the scene, the viewer can imagine that the spot drawn by the artist is filling the cherry tree with its leaves again. But the truth is that the conversations of the curious these days revolve more around the beauty or ugliness of the artist’s work, or about the re-evaluation that houses touched by the hand of genius can receive.

Islington County has already instructed the municipal team normally responsible for removing graffiti from the neighborhood to respect the new law. Banksy.

Controversial artist

On Wednesday morning, two huge white spots appeared on the author's work, as if someone had dropped paint to destroy it. Some neighbors lamented the apparent riot — Banksy's urban pieces, at increasingly insane prices, were saved from entering the category — but others remembered that it was the same artist who had once planned to directly tear down one of his paintings, in the middle of his house. auction. The result of that prank was that the painting, or what was left of it, hanging from the frame where Banksy was hiding the paper shredder, saw its value double. Perhaps the sabotage of the work came from the author himself.

The owners of the building in which the new genius of the unknown street artist appeared have put fences around it to try to protect the added value. Next to the cherry tree is a small sign prohibiting people from climbing the tree. Curiosity is insatiable, and many have already jumped over the temporary fences installed around the business to get a better photo. Sooner or later, someone will end up climbing the branches of a cherry tree to get better details of Banksy's disgrace, completely ignoring that the initial purpose of this urban guerrilla art was specifically to condemn the abandonment of the tree.

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