Wim Wenders receives special award at Sarajevo film festival


Issued on: 13/08/2021 - 

The Sarajevo film festival paid tribute to Wenders for his unforgettable stories 

JOEL SAGET AFP


Sarajevo (AFP)

German film-maker Wim Wenders on Friday received a special award at the Sarajevo film festival in recognition of his "extraordinary" contribution to cinema.

The veteran director received the Heart of Sarajevo award at the festival's launch ceremony, marking its reopening to the public after being organised online last year.

"We are very happy to be able to pay tribute to one of the central figures of world cinematography," said festival director Mirsad Purivatra presenting the award to Wenders.

"With his work in the field of visual art, as an extraordinary cinematic auteur... Wim Wenders has always offered the public unforgettable stories and emotions," he added.

Wenders returned to Sarajevo a decade after he presented a documentary about German dancer Pina Bausch.

He walked the red carpet wearing the same outfit that he wore back then -- a grey shirt with a heart stamped on the front -- a symbol of the festival.

"Ten years ago, I came in 2011 and I'm wearing this T-shirt proudly ever since. Now, I'm walking away with a real heart. I (will) come back in 2031," joked Wenders, who turns 76 on Saturday.

The Sarajevo festival, created as an "act of resistance" during the siege of Sarajevo (1992-95), has often attracted world cinema stars, including Robert De Niro, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, or recently Isabelle Huppert, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Gael Garcia Bernal.

Its organisers are especially committed to promoting films from southeastern Europe.

Ten feature films from the region are competing this year at the festival.

Forgotten son of east Belfast who rose to top in Hollywood

Filmmaker: Brian Desmond Hurst

Festival to screen movie by prolific director Hurst, a man who was shunned by own city

Maureen Coleman

August 14 2021

He was mentored by Hollywood’s legendary moviemaker John Ford, worked with stars from Richard Attenborough to Roger Moore, and directed the 1951 festive film Scrooge starring Alastair Sim.

Despite being Ulster’s most prolific director, east Belfast man Brian Desmond Hurst remains relatively unknown.

Now, 35 years after his death, Hurst is to be honoured with one of his movies shown on the big screen this weekend.

On The Night Of The Fire (1939) will be screened tomorrow at the Strand Arts Centre as part of the EastSide Arts Festival.

The Strand has secured the rare 35mm reels of the film, regarded as an early example of British film noir and starring Ralph Richardson.

The screening coincides with the launch on Kindle of a comprehensive, 1,000-image book on the director’s life, Hurst On Film.

It has been curated by Caitlin Smith, whose father Allan Esler Smith was Hurst’s great- great-nephew, and Stephen Wyatt, who helped Hurst write his memoirs in the 1970s.

The notes were believed to have been lost but were later recovered and form part of Hurst’s vast estate, managed by Mr Smith. Both he and his daughter will join filmmaker and broadcaster Brian Henry Martin at Sunday’s event via Zoom to discuss the book and Hurst’s legacy.

“Brian Desmond Hurst was a flamboyant, gay man from east Belfast who died intestate, and his estate passed onto an older brother as he had no children,” said Mr Smith.

“His estate was a shambles; scattered to the wind, and he had given many of his possessions away, including a Picasso. Different family members had different things and I was able to consolidate it all.

“The archives hold thousands of movie stills, posters and scripts, but the gem is his memoirs.

“I discovered Stephen Wyatt by fluke really, who had written the memoirs straight out of Cambridge University, when Brian gave him a job.

“Stephen and Caitlin got together and wrote the book, Hurst on Film. It’s a fascinating book about a fascinating man.”

Hurst was born in 1895 in Ribble Street. He fought at Gallipoli in 1915, where his battalion was virtually wiped out in a day.

After the war he studied art in Canada, Paris and New York before hitchhiking to LA.

It was in Hollywood where he got his break when his art caught the eye of Ford. They became friends and Hurst made his screen debut in 1928 alongside John Wayne in a silent flick.

He turned his attention to working behind the camera, directing over 30 films including Scrooge, Theirs Is The Glory, Dangerous Moonlight and the controversial Ourselves Alone, a film about the Irish War of Independence that was banned here for many years.

Back home in Belfast his glittering career didn’t receive the recognition it deserved, and he wasn’t celebrated as one of the city’s favourite sons.

“Brian Desmond Hurst was an Ulster Covenant-signing, gay Protestant from east Belfast who converted to Catholicism under John Ford,” added Smith.

“That probably wouldn’t have sat too comfortably with some people, although his family were all fine with it. But it wouldn’t have been a great story to tell in the 1970s and might explain why he wasn’t accepted or recognised at home. Things have changed now and it’s only right that he is remembered.”

“After all, he’s a man of whom John Ford once said: ‘Brian was one of the most delightful men I ever knew. I once told Frank Capra, ‘It’s a good thing Brian went back to Britain. He could have given us out here a run for the money.’”

On The Night Of The Fire will be screened along with a discussion at Strand Arts Centre tomorrow at 11.15am.

Indigenous Filipino Group Has Highest Known Denisovan Ancestry

Researchers found the relatively high proportion of DNA from a hominin cousin—nearly 5 percent—when they scanned more than 1,000 genomes from 118 distinct ethnic groups.

ABOVE: Self-identified Negritos from various islands of the Philippines.
OPHELIA PERSSON

Annie Melchor
Aug 13, 2021

Until recently, scientists thought the modern humans with the highest proportion of Denisovan ancestry lived in Papua New Guinea and Australia. According to a new study published yesterday (August 12) in Current Biology, however, an Indigenous group in the Philippines called the Ayta Magbukon have 30 to 40 percent more Denisovan DNA than these other frontrunners, for a total of nearly 5 percent of their genomes.

Denisovans were a group of archaic humans first identified from a single pinkie bone in a Siberian cave. They coexisted with modern humans and other archaic human species, such as Neanderthals, for hundreds of thousands of years, until they went extinct an estimated 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. According to Gizmodo, only Pacific Islanders and Southeast Asians have substantial Denisovan ancestry. By comparison, most people in other parts of mainland Asia have less than 0.05 percent Denisovan ancestry, and people of African and European descent don’t have any.


“[The Ayta Magbukon] possess more Denisovan ancestry than anybody else on the planet today,” Uppsala University biologist and study coauthor Mattias Jakobsson tells Inverse. “So that was a surprise to us.”

See “Humans Made Tools Atop the Tibetan Plateau More than 30,000 Years Ago”

According to Gizmodo, the researchers were originally interested in studying the human history of the Philippines as part of a massive collaborative effort with Indigenous communities, local governments, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines, and researchers at Uppsala University.

As a follow-up study to an earlier one studying human migrations to the Philippines, “we intended to look at the distant past by assessing the levels of archaic ancestry among the populations, especially that some populations in these regions were previously shown to have elevated levels of Denisovan ancestry and that Island Southeast Asia is known to be inhabited by various archaic species of Homo,” population geneticist and study coauthor Maximilian Larena tells Gizmodo.

See “Climate Change Helped Drive Homo sapiens’ Cousins Extinct: Study”

To do this, the researchers analyzed the genomes of 1,107 individuals belonging to 118 distinct ethnic groups in the Philippines—including 25 groups self-identifying as “Negritos,” who are regarded as the earliest modern human inhabitants of the Philippines, according to the study’s authors. By comparing these genomes to Denisovan and Neanderthal genomes, they found that while the degree of Neanderthal ancestry was fairly uniform in their study population (and comparable to modern humans in other parts of the world), the degree of Denisovan ancestry was highly variable, and substantially higher among Negritos than in other groups.

These findings “are consistent with a model of an independent interbreeding event between Negritos and Denisovans within the Philippines, suggesting that Denisovans may have been in the islands long before the presence of any modern human ethnic group,” Larena tells Gizmodo.

University of Tübingen paleogeneticist Cosimo Posth, who was not involved in the study, tells Science News the new report suggests that “still today there are populations that have not been fully genetically described and that Denisovans were geographically widespread.”

Currently, the Denisovan fossil record is sparse, and according to Science News, Denisovan fossils can’t be identified by morphology alone. They have to be genetically sequenced, which can be difficult when extracting fossils from tropical climates where the ancient DNA degrades more quickly.

See “Denisovan Fossil Identified in Tibetan Cave”

The findings “further increase my suspicions that Denisovan fossils are hiding in plain sight,” among previously excavated discoveries on Southeast Asian islands, University of Adelaide population geneticist João Teixeira tells Science News. Teixeira was not involved with the current study.

“When it comes to Southeast Asia and the Southeast Asian Islands, we have more questions than answers as we don’t have a good archaeological record,” University of Colorado Boulder population geneticist Fernando Villanea tells Inverse. Villanea, who was not involved with the study, adds, “Now we have these incredible genetic findings and we’re having a hard time putting together a cohesive story.”

“By sequencing more genomes in the future, we will have better resolution in addressing multiple questions, including how the inherited archaic tracts influenced our biology and how it contributed to our adaptation as a species,” Larena says in the press release.

See “Neanderthal DNA in Modern Human Genomes Is Not Silent”

The doomed far-right prophecies of Trump's so-called 'reinstatement' are collapsing before our eyes

Alex Henderson, AlterNet
August 13, 2021

Donald Trump speaks to a large crowd at "An Address to Young America" an event hosted by Students for Trump and Turning Point Action. (Nuno21 / Shutterstock.com)

Friday, August 13, 2021, according to far-right conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, was supposed to be "Reinstatement Day" — the day in which Donald Trump would be reinstated as president when evidence demonstrated that widespread voter fraud occurred in the 2020 election. But that evidence doesn't exist, Lindell's wacky conspiracy theories have been debunked by cybersecurity experts — and as of Friday morning, August 13, Joe Biden is still the democratically elected president of the United States and Kamala Harris is still vice president. Even if the non-existent evidence of election fraud appeared, there would still be no mechanism for returning Trump to power.

Nonetheless, Newsweek journalist Jenni Fink reports that one in ten U.S. voters believe that Trump will be returning to the White House and Biden will be ousted sometime before 2021 ends.

"Religious leaders and Trump's supporters have thrown out a number of dates that the former president was expected to return to power," Fink observes, "and the failure for the prediction to come true prompted some to double down, throwing out new expectations."

Some far-right figures have even claimed that Trump has already retaken the office of the presidency, despite the obvious falsity of this assertion.

In early July, Lindell told far-right evangelical fundamentalist Brannon Howse, "The morning of August 13, it'll be the talk of the world, going, 'Hurry up! Let's get this election pulled down, let's right the right, let's get these communists out.'"

Fink explains, "Lindell's August 13 prediction wasn't the first to fail and Biden was still inaugurated on January 20, the day that some believed the election would be overturned. Biden also remained in office after March 4, another day that was floated for Trump's reinstatement."

One of the far-right evangelical conspiracy theorists who has claimed that Trump will be "reinstated" this year is QAnon supporter Jeff Jansen, who said on June 8, "The Trump Administration is on its way in. The pedophilia Biden Administration, the fake administration, the Biden Administration is on its way out."

The "pedophilia" part comes from QAnon's comically absurd belief that the U.S. government has been hijacked by an international cabal of pedophiles, Satanists and cannibals. QAnon adherents also believe that R&B superstar Beyoncé isn't really African-American, but rather, is an Italian-American named Ann Marie Lastrassi who is only pretending to be Black.

The day that Jansen predicted for Trump's "reinstatement" was June 23.

During a visit to Ramallah, Israeli intellectuals affirm their rejection of the continued occupation

RAMALLAH, Saturday, August 14, 2021 (WAFA) – A delegation of about twenty Israeli film directors, artists and writers affirmed today their rejection of the continuing Israeli occupation of Palestine, saying the political status quo cannot continue as it is forever.

During a meeting in Ramallah with the PLO Committee for Interaction with the Israeli Society, the delegation affirmed their belief in the existence of a Palestinian partner for peace, adding that they will work hard to publish the outcome of the meeting with the Israeli public opinion, so that the Israelis will know there is a real partner on the side.

The Israeli delegation also affirmed that true and just peace cannot be achieved without recognizing the right of the Palestinian people to their independent state on the borders of June 4, 1967.

Mohammad al-Madani, the head of the Committee who received the delegation, called for Israeli intellectuals and artists to have a role in working for a just peace based on the two-state solution, with a fair and agreed solution to the Palestinian refugee issue in accordance with UN Resolution 194.

Motti Lerner, an Israeli playwright who attended the meeting, expressed his rejection of the Israeli occupation, adding, "We listened to words we had not heard before, and we believe that a real Palestinian partner exists. We must work together for peace and an end to the occupation, and I look forward to learning Palestinian culture, literature and creativity."

Sinai Peter, an Israeli film director, pointed out that Israeli intellectuals will familiarize the Israeli public with the reality of the Israeli occupation which harms the two peoples. He said the Israeli occupation of Palestine must end, and that the Palestinians have the right to live in their independent state.

Other members of the Israeli delegation expressed their desire to learn about Palestinian culture, Palestinian intellectual production, and the reality experienced by the Palestinian people under prolonged Israeli occupation.

M.N

Twelve  Pro-Palestine US institutions urge Speaker of Congress to stop demolitions in Silwan

WASHINGTON, Sunday, August 15, 2021 (WAFA) – Twelve pro-Palestine institutions in the United States have demanded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer to immediately intervene to halt Israel’s decision to demolish 16 homes for Palestinian citizens in the neighborhood of Silwan in occupied Jerusalem.

The institutions said in a statement that Pelosi and Schumer have the power to press Israel to stop the demolitions and to stop the policy of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.

"Since May 2021, hundreds of Palestinian families in East Jerusalem, including 16 households in the Al-Bustan neighborhood, have faced the risk of arbitrary expulsion. The US support for Israel and the policy of silence about its crimes against the Palestinians encourage it to commit more ethnic cleansing practices," said the statement.

Sponsors of the campaign include: Justice for Justice, American Muslims for Palestine, Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Eyewitness Palestine, and Jewish Voices for Peace, and the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

The campaign urges Pelosi and Schumer to press the Israeli government to immediately stop scheduled evictions of Palestinian families from their homes in the Al-Bustan district in Silwan.

It also urges them to stop supporting and encouraging the Israeli government's continuous violations of human rights against the Palestinians.

M.N

In two weeks, Israel demolished 57 Palestinian-owned structures in occupied territories displacing 97 people - UN

Israeli demolition of Palestinian-owned structures east of Ramallah.

JERUSALEM, Saturday, August 14, 2021 (WAFA) – In the period between 27 July and 9 August, the Israeli occupation authorities demolished, seized or forced people to demolish 57 Palestinian-owned structures across the West Bank due to lack of Israeli-issued building permits, displacing 97 people, including 67 children, and affecting the livelihoods of 240 other people, according to the Protection of Civilians report published biweekly by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Of these structures, 17 were seized displacing 27 people, including 19 children, in the Bedouin community of Ibziq in the Jordan Valley. An additional 28 people, including 21 children, were displaced when the Israeli authorities demolished six structures in al Mu’arrajat Centre in Ramallah.

In East Jerusalem, 12 structures were demolished, including five livelihood structures in Dahiyet al Bareed neighborhood.

In addition to the army demolition of Palestinian-owned structures, Israeli settlers vandalized at least 40 Palestinian-owned trees, and five vehicles across the West Bank during the reporting period, said OCHA.

Also during the reporting period, the Israeli army shot and killed four Palestinians, including an 11-year-old boy - two from Beita in the north of the West Bank and two, including the boy, from Beit Ummar in the south of the West Bank - and a fifth Palestinian from Jenin died on August 11 of wounds sustained a week earlier from Israeli army gunfire.

A total of 50 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank this year, all by live ammunition.

The Israeli occupation forces injured 764 Palestinians across the West Bank during demonstrations where Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers, who fired live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas at them. Of the total injured, 586 people were injured during protests against settlements in Beita and 10 in Beit Dajan, both in the Nablus area.

A total of 107 were wounded during the protests at the funeral of the 11-year-old boy killed in Beit Ummar.

Beyond the 764 injured directly by Israeli forces, 95 were injured in Beita either while running away from Israeli forces or in circumstances that could not be verified, said OCHA.

Israeli forces carried out 92 search-and-arrest operations and arrested 115 Palestinians, including 11 children, across the West Bank with 30 of operations taking place in the Jerusalem governorate and 17 in the Hebron governorate.

M.K.

Senegal architects enraged after historic Dakar market is bulldozed

Issued on: 13/08/2021 -

Demolition work at the Sandaga market in Dakar began last week Seyllou AFP


Dakar (AFP)

Senegalese architects expressed their anger on Friday after bulldozers razed the famed Sandaga market, a sprawling hub of informal trade in the heart of Senegal's capital Dakar.

An iconic establishment lying between the old French colonial quarter and more working-class neighbourhoods, Sandaga has been one of Dakar's main trading centres for almost a century.

Frequented daily by residents of the capital, the market also drew people from the provinces and from the West African region. Many tourists came to hunt down artisanal carvings and other artefacts.

The great hall, built in the Sudanese-Sahel tradition in 1933, housed hundreds of stalls selling merchandise of all kinds, from food to craft goods. It was shut down for public safety reasons after the edifice was weakened by several fires.

The authorities had it pulled down in order to build a modernised replica. The architects voiced their anger just hours after that process was completed on Friday.

"This is deeply regrettable," said Jean Augustin Carvalho, president of the National Order of Architects.

Sandaga is "a heritage and an identity of the city of Dakar. It was necessary by all means to see how to preserve it," he said adding "this building could still be standing with some renovation".

Papa Dame Thiaw, another member of the architect's society, said that "technical solutions exist for the conservation of this heritage building."

Fellow member Annie Jouga called the demolition "a scandal".

"It is a bluff to say that we are going to rebuild identically. We cannot reconstruct a 1933 building identically with modern techniques," she added.

Shopkeepers voiced opposition over the relocation last month, telling the government that they would lose customers at the new site far from Sandaga, a curiosity for tourists which drew large crowds.

Last year the government chose a site some two kilometres from Sandaga as a temporary replacement for the traders.

The new Sandaga is expected to take two years to build.

The mayor of Dakar-Plateau region, Alioune Ndoye, who is supervising the project, said he would address the issue on Monday.

© 2021 AFP

US Forest Service in crisis mode as wildfires ravage American West


Issued on: 14/08/2021 - 07:29
Text by: NEWS WIRES

The U.S. Forest Service said Friday it's operating in crisis mode, fully deploying firefighters and maxing out its support system as wildfires continue to break out across the U.S. West, threatening thousands of homes and entire towns.

The roughly 21,000 federal firefighters working on the ground is more than double the number of firefighters sent to contain forest fires at this time a year ago, and the agency is facing “critical resources limitations,” said Anthony Scardina, a deputy forester for the agency's Pacific Southwest region.

An estimated 6,170 firefighters alone are battling the Dixie Fire in Northern California, the largest of 100 large fires burning in 14 states, with dozens more burning in western Canada.

The fire began a month ago and has destroyed more than 1,000 homes, businesses and other structures, much of it in the small town of Greenville in the northern Sierra Nevada.

The fire had ravaged more than 800 square miles (well over 2,000 square kilometers) — an area larger than the city of London — and continued to threaten more than a dozen rural and forest communities.

Containment lines for the fire held overnight, but it was just 31% surrounded. Gusty and erratic winds were threatening to spread the fire to Westwood, a lumber town of 1,700. Lightning could spark new blazes even as crews try to surround a number of other forest fires ignited by lightning last month.

"Mother nature just kind of keeps throwing us obstacles our way," said Edwin Zuniga, a spokesman with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, working together with the Forest Service to tamp out the blaze.

Meanwhile, firefighters and residents were scrambling to save hundreds of homes as flames advance across the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana.

The blaze was still burning near the tribal headquarters town of Lame Deer, where a mandatory evacuation remained in place and a second fire was threatening from the opposite direction.

Smoke from the blazes grew so thick Friday morning that the health clinic in Lame Deer was shut down after its air filters could not keep up with the pollution, Northern Cheyenne Tribe spokesperson Angel Becker said.

Smoke drove air pollution levels to unhealthy or very unhealthy levels in portions of Montana, Idaho, Oregon Washington and Northern California, according to Environmental Protection Agency air quality monitoring.

An air quality alert covering seven Montana counties warned of extremely high levels of small pollution particles found in smoke, which can cause lung issues and other health problems if inhaled.

Hot, dry weather expected into weekend

The fires near Lame Deer combined have burned 275 square miles (710 square kilometers) this week, so far sparing homes but causing extensive damage to pasture lands that ranchers depend on to feed their cows and horses.

Gusts and low humidity were creating extremely dangerous conditions as flames devoured brush, short grass and timber, fire officials said.

Hot, dry weather with strong afternoon winds also propelled several fires in Washington state, and similar weather was expected into the weekend, fire officials said.

In southeastern Oregon, two new wildfires started by lightning Thursday near the California border were spreading through juniper trees, sagebrush and evergreen trees.

Gov. Kate Brown declared an emergency for one of the fires to mobilize crews and other resources to the area of ranches, rural subdivisions and RV parks about 14 miles (23 kilometers) from the small town of Lakeview.

The blaze grew from a lightning strike to 11 square miles (28 square kilometers) in less than 24 hours, said Tamara Schmidt, a U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman.

Authorities Thursday evening ordered the evacuation of an RV park that stood in the path of the Oregon's Patton Meadow Fire.

The fires are near the area torched Oregon's Bootleg Fire which started July 6 and burned an area more than half the size of Rhode Island before crews gained the upper hand. The fire is not yet fully contained and was the nation’s largest until being eclipsed by the Dixie Fire.

Triple-digit temperatures and bone-dry conditions in Oregon, enduring a third day of extreme heat, could increase fire risks through the weekend.

Climate change has made the U.S. West warmer and drier in the past 30 years and will continue to make the weather more extreme and wildfires more destructive, according to scientists.

More than 6,000 square miles (almost 16,000 square kilometers) have been burned in the U.S. so far this year. That's well ahead of the amount burned by this point last year, but below the 10-year average, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

Parts of Europe also are burning, including in Greece, where where a massive wildfire has decimated forests and torched homes, and was still smoldering 10 days after it started.

(AP)

Banksy admits British seaside 'spraycation'

Issued on: 14/08/2021 - 

Banksy's trademark rat reclines in style on a British seaside beach

 JUSTIN TALLIS AFP

London (AFP)

Banksy, Britain's most famous street artist, on Friday confirmed what many had already suspected -- that he is indeed the author of a number of works that have appeared recently in British seaside towns.

An Instagram video clip, just over three minutes long and entitled "A Great British Spraycation", shows the elusive artist taking a summer road trip in a beat-up camper van with cans of spray paint stashed in a cooler.

In one work on the concrete sea-defence wall of a British beach, a rat lounges in a deckchair, sipping a cocktail.

Banksy's latest creations play on familiar memes of a faded seaside holiday tradition JUSTIN TALLIS AFP

In another, sticking to the seaside theme, a mechanical claw dangles above a public bench -- as if anyone who sits there is about to be plucked up like a prize in an arcade game.

Another shows a giant seagull swooping down to snatch some outsized chips -- French fries to US readers -- from a waste skip or dumpster.

A seagull swoops down on some outsized chips in a waste skip -- both common sights in modern day Britain JUSTIN TALLIS AFP

A fourth shows three children in a rickety boat. One looks ahead while another is busy bailing out water with a bucket.

Above them, appears the inscription: "We're all in the same boat."

On the roof of a bus shelter, a couple also dance to the tune of a flat-capped accordian player, in a black and white painting evoking the faded, down-at-heel feel of many of the country's once-prosperous seaside resorts.

Banksy ended speculation that artworks bearing his hallmarks which recently appeared in England are indeed his JUSTIN TALLIS AFP

In recent years, the Bristol artist, who cleverly maintains the mystery of his identity, has kept the attention of the contemporary art world with his social commentaries and causes -- migrants, opposition to Brexit, denunciation of Islamist radicals -- as well as stirring the excitement of the moneyed art markets.

Last March, a work honouring caregivers fetched a record 14.4 million pounds (about $20 million, 20 million euros).

You wait all year for a Banksy, and then a load of them come along at once... Banksy plays to fond folk memories of faded glory JUSTIN TALLIS AFP

The proceeds went to a hospital charity, Christie's auctioneers said at the time.

NOW
Coronavirus: Banksy artwork donated to emergency department in the UK

Banksy confirms series of artworks along England's east coast are his


By 9News Staff Aug 14, 2021

A series of artworks that have appeared along the east coast of England have been confirmed to be the work of mysterious street artist Banksy.
People have been flooding in from all around to see the pieces, which began appearing a week ago around the regions of Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Cromer, Norfolk; and Lowestoft and Oulton Broad in Suffolk.
Although the works are undoubtedly painted in Banksy's trademark style, combining satirical street art, dark humour and graffiti using stencilling, they were not confirmed by the artist until yesterday via his official Instagram.

READ MORE: Is Banksy behind this prison-escape mural on the wall of a notorious British jail?


The first mural features a couple appearing to dance atop a bus shelter, accompanied by a man playing an accordion appears on Admiralty Road in Great Yarmouth.
READ MORE: Banksy encourages people to wear a mask through latest coronavirus-inspired work

Banksy has confirmed 10 pieces of street art that have appeared along the east coast of England are his. (Instagram)
The second features arcade-style toy-grabbing crane in Gorleston, and a child holding a crowbar in Lowestoft.

Another shows three children in a boat in front of the words "we're all in the same boat".
The famously secretive artist, who has never officially revealed himself to the public, is responsible for dozens of artworks on streets, walls, and bridges across England and throughout the world.

Earlier this year, an artwork depicting a prisoner's daring escape appeared on the wall of a British jail.

READ MORE: Banksy shares new artwork supporting Black Lives Matter

An artwork by Banksy depicting three children in a boat at Oulton Broad. (Instagram)

The mural shows a prison inmate making an escape from Reading Prison, a disused institution in southern England that once held the Irish poet Oscar Wilde.

In 2020, Banksy showed his support for the Black Lives Matter movement with a new piece of art and a stark message: "People of Colour are being failed by the system".

The work, also unveiled in an Instagram post, depicts how George Floyd's death shook the US and the word.

Banksy-funded ship saves migrants in Mediterranean

Banksy auction for bushfire relief

Street artist Banksy 'shreds' artwork