Migrant’s Soup Kitchen
Migrant’s Soup Kitchen
Year: June 2018
Location: Porte de La Chapelle, Paris, France
Around 20 June 2018 (World Refugee Day), Banksytook aim at Francefor what has been seen as its poor management of the refugee crisis. At that occasion, Banksy left France with a few poignant murals.
Migrant Soup was realized near the Porte de la Chapelle metro station, where Paris’ refugee centre “La Bulle” was located until August 2017. A city within a city, it was home to a makeshift camp of some 2,700 refugees and was dismantled an estimated 35 times before 2,000 migrants were bussed to temporary shelters. This was done as part of Emmanuel Macron’s wish to remove the refugees “off the streets, out of the woods” as stated during his campaign.
With this in mind, Banksy revisited his “Go Flock Yourself” piece from 2008, and created a new version as commentary on the current political situation in France and throughout Europe. Depicting a black girl painting a Victorian wallpaper pattern over a swastika, the artist is commenting on the way politicians are concealing wrongdoing and potentially fascist policies.
Go Flock Yourself, spray-paint on canvas, 2008
