Choose Your Weapon is one of Banksy’s most powerful and enigmatic artworks. First appearing overnight in 2010 on a wall in Southwark, London, it features a masked, hooded youth walking Keith Haring’s iconic cartoon dog on a chain. The graffiti was quickly boarded up, only to be preserved by local fans beneath protective Perspex. With its stark silhouette and urban tension, the work comments on rising youth violence and gang culture in Britain at the time - especially the use of dogs as status symbols or weapons. Yet, by replacing a threatening animal with Haring’s playful street-art motif, Banksy subverts expectations and turns a symbol of aggression into one of expression and resistance.
The title, written in second person, implicates the viewer directly. This is no passive observation - it's a call to action. Banksy flips his usual critique of institutions outward, asking us to reflect: what is our weapon of choice, and what are we doing with it?
