RAY WALKER // Hackney Carnival Peace Mural
Sunday morning, back wandering around London in search of street art and urban life. Today I reached out Dalston for the first time and unexpectedly pop up in front of this mural. There is a 90% probability that you have seen it, even if not living in London as this mural made on the cover album of the Rudimental Album, "Home", which was on the top of all main music charts a few years ago. The other incredible thing about this mural, as I learnt from the small plaque on the wall, is that it was made in ... 1985. I.e. a piece of street art before street art was "invented" and at around the same time when Thierry Noir started painting on Berlin Wall. And similarly to the Berlin Wall murals, the subject to this piece is also the cold war. As you notice closely, the subject is a colourful mass of people marching against the Soviet and American nuclear bombs that are painted in the central/upper part of the mural. The work was conceived by Ray Walker, a famous British muralist, but he suddendly died, aged 39, before starting it. It was completed by his wife and a friend who portraited Ray. It believe it is the man on the far left who watch, with a sad glaze, the cheering crowd
