BANKSY // How all this started
In this pic is whete and how my interest for street art started. August 2008, with 3 other friends we travelled to Israel, Palestine and Jordan. An amazing trip. One day we rented a random driver on the street in Jerusalem to visit Bethlehem, Jericho and Ramallah, the capital of Palestine where you can visit the tomb of Arafat. Driver's name was "John" and the car a decrepit blue Fiat - all details that I remember because we had to repeat over and over to Israeli police later in the trip. During the day we passed nearby part of the infamous wall that separates Palestine and Israel. Some lonely graffitis were on, but a few in particular catched our attention. They were sarcastic and with a sense of dark humor. They were the only anti-war statement we found in our journey. I don't remember if some of us already knew about the author, but that was the day I learnt about Banksy. Someone able to make people smile at the non-sense around. A modern jester exposing the stupidity of power and war. That day I started looking at dirty walls, spray colours, stencils and paste-ups to spot this new movement that was growing in our city and we call street art. This is one of the only two pics of Banksy's stencils that we were able to save after Israeli airport police seized part of our cameras and electronic equipment after one of us told them that we visited
