BANKSY STREET WORKS // One Nation Under CCTV, 2007

  • Banksy One Nation Under CCTV 2007 London street art mural on Newman Street showing surveillance theme with security camera and large painted text
    BanksyOne Nation Under CCTV, 2007.
    Newman Street, London, England.
    © Banksy.
    Unveiled in 2007, One Nation Under CCTV was one of Banksy’s largest and most audacious murals, painted high on a Royal Mail building on Newman Street in London. The work shows a child in a red hoodie painting the words “ONE NATION UNDER CCTV” on the wall, closely monitored by a policeman and his dog. To add to the irony, the piece was created directly beside a functioning CCTV camera, making its message of state surveillance all the more biting.
     
    The scale of the mural made it especially remarkable, as its execution would have required three stories of scaffolding erected behind security fencing, all while under the supposed watch of the CCTV system it critiqued. Both visually striking and politically charged, the mural became a powerful commentary on the UK’s growing surveillance culture before it was eventually painted over in 2009.
  • “You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy."

    - Banksy 

    Unveiled in 2007, One Nation Under CCTV was one of Banksy’s most ambitious public works, dominating the side of a Royal Mail building in central London. The mural depicted a hooded child painting the slogan “ONE NATION UNDER CCTV,” while being watched by a policeman and his dog. Positioned directly beside a working surveillance camera, the piece turned its own creation into a live performance of the state control it critiqued.
    The mural’s scale and location made it both daring and confrontational, demanding scaffolding and risk under the very gaze it mocked. For two years it remained one of Banksy’s most recognisable works before being painted over in 2009, but its message on surveillance culture remains just as relevant today.
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