Walking up Hosier Lane in Melbourne’s for the first time in 2015 I notice that amongst the many pilgrims to this Mecca for street art and graffiti there new work of several visiting artists. Factor has been back in town.
That Will Coles has also paid a visit from Sydney and his current casts are finer and more elaborate than has old lost objects. There now must be a Will Coles piece in every niche in Hosier Lane, many now covered with layers of spray paint.
That Amorphic has put up some paste-ups while she was over from South Australia. She informs me that she put up some more around the Barkley Square Shopping Centre in Brunswick, off Monarch Lane in St Kilda, and on a door in Union Lane.
It is good to see Dolus bringing stencils back into the mix. Stencils were over used by street artists a decade ago and many people have been avoided using them ever since.
However the main reason that I wanted to take a look at Hosier Lane was to see how Melbourne’s street artists have reacted to recent events, namely the attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Melbourne’s street artists are always quick to follow a political meme and to contribute their part in the discourse.
Black Mark 
January 24th, 2015 at 7:23 PM
The last picture, “Je Suis Greste/Snowdon/Assange…Don’t forget the big picture” went against my grain slightly, as, to my mind, it dilutes and potentially belittles the memory of the Charlie Hedbo journalists.
I once knew an Auschwitz survivor, whose job was to remove bodies from the ovens. On discussing atrocities of this nature, she said to me and the others present, “The holocaust is only one of many such incidents, let’s not forget Pol Pot and many of the other mass murders throughout history”. I felt at the time, as I still do, that if there was anyone qualified to issue such a reminder, it was her.
January 24th, 2015 at 7:37 PM
Well, James I think that we all need to remind ourselves that it always could have been me, rather than just the other person who is being killed or brutalised. It requires no qualifications or experience but simple empathy.
January 24th, 2015 at 7:41 PM
Yes, definitely things worth keeping in mind.