Street art: who is it for? Making meaning in Southend

The past five years have been a heated time for representations of history, politics and identity in the public space.

From 2020 there was the contestation of monuments to figures connected with colonialism or the slave trade. While this wasn’t limited to the public sphere, with the contestation of monuments including those displayed in the university space, for example - their defacing, removal or general conflict arisen changed the role of historical legacy in public. Their removal - their non-presence now a kind of presence - opened up dialogue on what legacies we bring forward in public narratives. This is connected to museology practices, with curatorial approaches to documenting colonial, slave trade and other harmful legacies presenting alternative histories - namely those of the oppressed.

Come 2025 and the hard-right founded Operation Raise the Colours movement has seen people encouraged to string the St George and Union Jack flags in public spaces - most notably high streets. Spawning several spin off “flagger groups” around the UK, the St George’s flag has been prominently hung and painted in public view - in acts that vary between criminality and legality. And now, in Southend especially - across the city and borough - from lampposts, windows, even motorways. 

There are still opportunities for constructive dialogue around what the flag means in the public sphere - as an example, when a mosque leader in Birkenhead found someone had tied a Union Jack to the mosque’s railings, no doubt intending to cause offence, he removed it but placed it in the window instead. "I think it’s a common misconception that Muslims aren’t regarded as British; we needed to address that.” 

Nonetheless, its increased presence in the public domain has its roots in far right, anti-immigration ideology - so it must be understood with this in mind. The argument that the flag merely symbolises patriotism and national pride has become a cover for these hard right ideologies - particularly at a time when civic union is dismantled, being ‘proud of our country’ in this form is a powerful vessel. The increase in racially motivated attacks - from verbal abuse to arson and violence - demonstrates this.

On 27 August, the Leader of Southend Council released a statement: that the flags were fine and would only be removed if they get tatty or cause an obstruction - a stance taken by most local authorities.

Two days after this statement was released, Southend’s third annual City Jam street art festival began. Commissioned by Southend City Council and supported by Southend’s Business Improvement District, and founded by two local street artists - Karl Sims and Steve Hart - around 200 artists descended upon the city centre, painting murals throughout the high street, the spaces donated by building and business owners.

The resulting artworks included pieces by the founding artists themselves - and this year’s edition saw a clear statement piece from Sims: entitled ‘My Royal Mews’, this is a four-storey tall Brittania on Alexandra Street, a Union Jack emblazoned on her shield.

The figure of Brittania brings a deeper twist to the guise of ‘national pride’, especially in the current political climate. As a symbol of Britain since the Roman era, she became a symbol of the British Empire, representing our military might over the seas. Her image appeared in the colonies - for example, on Bank of Bengal notes, she was depicted accepting the ‘fruits of the Empire’ from a kneeling Indian woman. This kind of dynamic was typical for her depiction: standing tall and strong over the diminutive women of the colonies. And she was degraded: particularly in this horrible illustration created to reflect concerns around a new taxation policy’s impact on Britain’s colonial power.

Basically, this image is loaded. It wasn’t long before ‘The Royal Mews’ was being shared online and fostering troubling dialogue. When the British Ulster posted a photo on their Facebook page, commenters widely praised the mural for symbolising their anti-immigration sentiments: 'Ruled the waves, not like our so called Border Force' and 'She would sort out the Invaders'.

In a statement on his motivation, Sims describes the mural as holding special meaning for the women in his life, and symbolising ‘strong women’ overall (which has particular significance considering the Brittania’s historical representation of might over the colonial woman).

While not directly addressing its political overtones, the closing lines of Sims’ statement reflect sentiments shared widely by those proclaiming patriotism. “It’s a message to the next generation - and a reminder that strength, grace, and legacy belong in public view.” 

What we can tell from this statement is that Sims knows what the Brittania symbolises. If the Brittania is a symbol of your pride, then it’s clear what your pride is founded in. Additionally, the political overtones of the mural cannot be separated from the surrounding context in the eye of the summer flag storm - a context that the artist himself, and the parties involved in the curation of the festival’s artworks, will be unavoidably aware of.

What decision-making processes were involved in the creation of this mural? And what message is this sending about political expression in public space?

The new politics

City Jam’s artwork selection process is via an open application form, with artists selected by the organisers - including Sims and Hart plus the Council - through several rounds of shortlisting. As part of the submission criteria, artists are asked to agree to the condition that prohibits anything themed with politics (among racism, nudity, social unrest, violence and anything offensive to any people or religious groups).

Is the Brittania - and its accompanying Union Jack - not political, or currently themed with racism, violence and social unrest? Who gets to decide what ‘political’ means? 

Thinking about the selection of murals for this year’s festival, content didn’t vary too much compared to previous editions - a “something for everyone” vibe encompassing sci-fi vibes, cartoons, animals, and conventionally attractive women. Sims has acknowledged that the artworks need to support popular appeal, as the selection panel “...put aside our own thoughts and desires sometimes and think actually, what is good for the general public, what is good for the council, what is good for Southend.”

Clearly in the selection process, the festival organisers - which includes the council - are making a choice over what can be deemed ‘political’ in the public arena. At such a heated political time, doesn’t the Brittania bely the ‘own thoughts and desires’ of the selection panel - particularly the artist who is also on the selection panel themselves? By indirectly deeming the mural to not be political, aren’t they taking the same lines of those claiming to raise the flag out of blameless patriotism?

As someone born here, the mural doesn’t represent my own interests - although, one of City Jam’s key KPIs is to boost tourism (with much of the messaging focusing on its benefit to visitors specifically), so it’s not really for me anyway. Yet, with the festival’s yearly cycle of new murals, the resident does become like a spectator, the landscape changing, their familiar landscape becoming unfamiliar. 

Even aside from the current political climate, ‘The Royal Mews’ feels culturally regressive - and a strange move for an artist who wants City Jam to be ‘a beacon for street art in Europe’. However, thinking about it from the purely touristic angle, the mural becomes a vessel for something else. Initially it represents overt imperial sentiment. But the Union Jack has its own life outside of Britain - emblazoned on tourist merchandise and houseware, for example. It’s for the anglophiles. Basically, it’s a consumer item. We can understand why this mural would summon the visiting phone cameras. 

‘My Royal Muse’ raises the question of who gets to decide what is ‘good’ for Southend. What images do we want to contribute to our changing public narrative? Can populism be just surface-level, or a vessel for more culturally significant implications?

What culture looks like

Since the early 2000s, street art has become an increasingly popular means for cash-strapped local authorities as a supposedly cheap quick-fix to beautify the urban landscape, attract tourism and investment. And it is popular - not limited to street art enthusiasts, large colourful murals have a mass appeal. Over 1500 similar models take place around the world. And since its establishment in 2022, City Jam has indeed brought increased footfall to the high street, an eternal area of desired attention and investment. 

What does street art do for a town? On the surface, it looks cool. It presents the idea that an area is buzzing with creativity, a ‘cultural hub’. It’s also nice to look at and generally doesn’t require the critical tools usually attributed to the perception of art. This is a desired outcome of the ‘creative city’, an urban regeneration template that presents a burgeoning cultural scene that attracts as many people as possible. Street art has become a motif for what culture ‘looks like.’

But this is in discord with actually supporting said-culture to survive. In response to an FOI request, the Council stated the following on fees for this year’s artists…

Sounds fair, right? However, speaking on this year’s festival, Sims has stated that not every artist is compensated, saying it’s: “...It’s just not financially viable to pay everyone… if we could, we would.” In the same interview he goes on to say that even he and Hart take a pay cut in order to make the festival happen.

So why do it?

Depressingly, it wouldn’t be a surprise if not all of the artists were paid. It’s a pervasive theme in the creative industries that the exchange of artist labour and talent is dependent on the appeal of “exposure”. Indeed, Sims adds (in the same interview) that some artists travelled to City Jam from as far as Australia - covering their own travel expenses. 

While this might read as proof that City Jam is an exciting opportunity for street artists, this practice of depending upon the opportunity alone as compensation devalues the artist - and contributes to precarious conditions, a narrowing of opportunities to those which are low-cost and low-budget (i.e. street art).

As I’ve covered before, arts and culture funding is often the first thing to go in austerity measures. In areas where culture funding has been deprived, and the existing creative scene suffered, street art comes in as a fix-all. Suddenly we have culture again! But only a specific type of culture that pleases ‘everyone’.

Street art IS political

Already, street art itself is politically symbolic. With its history in graffiti, which takes its most recognised form today from the late 1960’s, street art murals have come to represent a more aesthetically appealing form of creative expression in the public realm. For example, the image of streets and buildings covered in graffiti tags arguably communicates feelings of criminality and danger - a ‘deprived neighbourhood’. But as we know, images of the same landscape covered in beautiful, vivid murals presents somewhere with artists and people with taste - a safer neighbourhood. 

There is a marked difference between the forms of graffiti and street art - aesthetically and symbolically. Graffiti tagging is about the artist - the act which stakes their presence on the landscape, however brief. Street art murals, in contrast, are about the art itself.

Additionally, councils and other municipal organisations frequently include the removal and maintenance of graffiti in their purview. Southend Council and BID are no exception - with the latter celebrating their direct role in graffiti removal.

And so these street art schemes support specific ideas about what culture ‘is’ and what it ‘does’ in the public realm - and how it should perform in both an aesthetic and practical sense. The commissioning of street art is an extension of the council’s authority - deciding what forms of expression are permissible in the public sphere.

And, therefore, deciding what is political and what isn’t - and what ‘political’ means.

Who is it for?

What ‘The Royal Mews’ represents is not so much a sea change in thought around which legacies we celebrate - more a reiteration of ‘the way things were’. Because what has happened in the 5 years between anti-monumentalism and ‘Raise the Colours’, is the return of widespread nationalist sentiment, formed in the civic disunion caused by the pandemic and ongoing austerity (in a bed of Brexit). These conditions - and resulting ideologies - are not unique to the UK. There is a desire to return to some state of things, a mythical time when things were ‘great’. The problem is that this time does not exist. Everyone that is suffering now will have realistically suffered then too. Nonetheless, it has become a powerful tool in populist politics, normalising nationalistic sentiment in the public space. 

The small group of parties involved in City Jam - with their need to support commerciality, tourism, and platforming their own (artistic) career - are actively involved in Southend’s presentation and development as a ‘creative city’, that urban planning blueprint which so often focuses on aesthetic objectives as opposed to sustaining creativity. In this way, they have huge sway over who gets to create culture and meaning in Southend’s public space. And by the co-founders perpetuating precarious conditions for street artists - including for themselves - this does not foster creativity, but instead contributes to its deprivation, potentially draining the landscape of arts and culture.

Finally, City Jam - like street art festivals overall - performs well in populist terms of what and who art should be for (i.e. ‘everyone’). But who is everyone? 

And does ‘everyone’ count if they’re not a tourist - the key audience the festival is developed for?

When we think about the England and British flag’s pejorative use aimed at perceived ‘outsiders’, then returning to the Brittania mural in this frame, it does not operate solely as an anglophilic spectacle. We cannot pretend it is harmless. After all, like many flag-raisers argue from their own experiences as tourists: “Other countries fly their flags everywhere. Why shouldn’t we?”