Now, I’m not much of a edgy hipster living in East London but I do love exploring the Shoreditch/Hoxton area and one of the best ways I’ve ever seen it is during a Street Art Walking Tour. Based in and around Brick Lane, the free two hour tours are run by street artists themselves.
You need to book in as they like to keep the walks small enough for everyone to enjoy. Once you have booked all you need to do is turn up and meet your guide. In our case we had a friendly and knowledgeable Scottish guy called Doug. We started out by hearing a little bit about the history of the area before we realised we were standing right in front of the first bit of art – a metal sculpture on top of a lamp post. Something I completely would have missed if it hadn’t been pointed out.
The rest of our tour was spent looking at various types of artwork, from famous paintings from Roa or Stik (names that I learned on this tour – I might add) to stencils and stickers done by less known artists. Each thing we saw, had a story behind it – the artist that come from nothing, the one who flew in just for one night to do this said artwork, or the special kind of technique that they used.
The tour also touch on the local community and how its organic culture came to be. Its a lot more than arty hipsters which is what I originally thought. The tour was great and since we enjoyed it so much we of course tipped our guide as handsomely as we could. Its the kind of tour where I could probably go again in a few months time and see a completely different set of art. I highly recommend it for a cheap night out to learn a little more about the area – even if you are a hipster based in East London.
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