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Just a few comments to explain some of the pieces above:
**Related to this: if your city also has any radical graffiti then definitely take some photos and upload a gallery to libcom!**
There's some great stuff here... I'm really interested in the idea of street art (as opposed to art stuck in a gallery) as a type of propaganda - and why it's so well and widely used in some places across Europe (you can't walk down the street in any town in Catalonia without some kind of mural or poster) and not at all elsewhere (when's the last time you saw anywhere in the UK declared an anti-fascist zone?). Is it something to do with our culture and collective history? Or something as banal as vandalism laws?
Anyway, enough esoteric rambling, I have fair few photos of stuff like this from around Spain - how do I upload em?
First things first, S-J, if you want to upload some image galleries, then just click here and get adding.. it was my hope that others would come forward with their own pictures, hopefully we can get a nice collection of political graffiti around the world!
Not got time to answer much about the other stuff but I suppose the reason is just that, in general, the UK is just much less explicitly political than a lot of places in Europe. If you think of the histories of countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, France etc.. they're all countries where you can think of massive social upheaval within living memory. In comparison, the UK has been a fairly politically stable country. That kind of politicisation is gonna come out in all kinds of ways like music, films, even language (like, in Italy, where we would describe a person as a bit 'alternative', in Italy they'd say they're 'a lefty type'!).. graffiti would be another one..
Anyway, again, it'd be great to see the pics you've got.. give us another shout if you have any problems..