About a day after street artist Banksy unveiled his latest creation in the London Underground, which underlined the importance of wearing a mask on public transport amid the COVID-19 outbreak, it was scrubbed off the train by cleaning staff who didn’t understand its significance.
Earlier on Tuesday, Banksy had uploaded a video titled If You Don’t Mask – You Don’t Get on his Instagram page. The video showed the elusive artist wearing protective gear and spray-painting pictures of rats sneezing on the inside of the train, illustrating how not wearing masks can lead to the spread of Coronavirus.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCn800cFIbe/
The pro-mask message by Banksy includes rats, which is a signature of many of his previous works. One of the images that had been graffitied features a rat holding a bottle of antibacterial hand wash, while another shows a rat using a face mask as a parachute.
The video closes with the words, “I get lockdown” painted the wall of an Underground station, followed by “but I get up again” sprayed on the inside of a train door. It’s not clear how long the work was actually on the train, but some suggest that Banksy painted the mural in a public place knowing it would not be there for long.
Cover image credit: @banksy