19. Art in the Streets

Abstract

Drawing on photographic documentation of street art, contextual analysis and artist interviews, this essay examines the work of two prolific street artists: The Velvet Bandit, a wheatpaste artist in the Bay Area (California, USA) and SudaLove, a muralist working in Khartoum (Sudan). Both The Velvet Bandit and SudaLove create artistic interventions in the street as a means of engaging with Covid-19 in a manner that is light and playful but also serious and political. As is typical of street art, their work is highly accessible, using simple visual language. At the same time, each piece requires deeper contextual knowledge to understand the underlying political and social significance.