Graffiti News

The Network Fail mural makes a threatened Birmingham community building the setting for a pointed image of its own possible loss. According to Birmingham Live, an unidentified graffiti artist painted the intervention overnight on The Warehouse in Allison Street, Digbeth. It shows Network Rail workers covering the building’s existing Tree Lung mural, turning an alteration to the wall into a comment on railway development.

The Warehouse houses a café, hosts community events and is home to Birmingham Friends of the Earth. Those uses matter to the image: the argument concerns a working community space as well as a painted surface.

The Network Fail mural uses erasure as its central image

The satire works by showing railway workers apparently removing a symbol of the place they could help displace. Artist Caroline Rouge painted Tree Lung in 2013, and the image became associated with The Warehouse’s community work. The new piece uses grey paint and a pun on Network Rail’s name to connect that earlier mural with the building’s uncertain future.

Birmingham Friends of the Earth chief executive Karen Leach initially found the overpainting distressing. After looking more closely, she came to regard the intervention as an effective expression of what the building faced. Leach denied involvement in making the new work. Her response shows how the meaning of an altered wall can shift once its imagery is understood.

The railway proposals put the building’s future in question

The dispute concerns the Midlands Rail Hub scheme and proposed changes to Bordesley Viaduct. Birmingham Live reported that more than 50 independent businesses could face demolition or displacement, with Luna Springs and Mama Roux’s among the venues potentially affected. The Warehouse could also be demolished if the plans proceed.

For street-art followers, the useful connection is between the threatened building and the image on its exterior: the location supplies much of the work’s meaning. The possibility of demolition makes the depicted covering more than a change of decoration. It invites attention to the activities inside the building and the people who use it.

Caroline Rouge supported the intervention over her earlier work

Rouge’s response complicates a straightforward story of one artist’s image being covered by another. Leach said the team contacted Rouge, who approved of the new piece and supplied a graphic to help recreate the original. Leach also said Tree Lung would be restored if the campaign against Network Rail’s plans succeeded. That makes restoration a conditional intention.

The new artist remains unidentified. Leach wondered whether Banksy might be responsible, but an expert consulted by Birmingham Live rejected that attribution. The firmer basis for reading the work is its imagery and setting. Remembering the earlier artist’s name also keeps Tree Lung’s history in view while attention turns to the anonymous intervention.

The campaign and Network Rail describe different priorities

Birmingham Friends of the Earth submitted alternative proposals to Midlands Rail Hub Alliance. Leach expressed confidence in the alternative while acknowledging it might contain flaws, and said the group had not received a response at the time of the report. She called for stronger scrutiny from political leaders, including West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker.

Network Rail said it was listening to local concerns. It described ambitions to improve connections, support jobs and businesses, and contribute to Birmingham’s regeneration. Parker said transport improvements needed to sit alongside support for businesses, venues and cultural assets. The mural gives the campaign a visual argument, while those different priorities explain the wider dispute surrounding the wall.

Visiting the wall means looking at the building as well

The Warehouse on Allison Street is the location to understand. Look at the Network Fail wording, the depicted workers and the relationship between the grey covering and the earlier image. A view that includes the building can explain the intervention more clearly than a detail isolated from its surroundings.

The café and community events are also part of the context: possible demolition concerns the activities housed here as well as the mural. Check the wall’s condition and access arrangements when planning a visit, and observe without interfering with the building’s use. To explore other street-art locations, the street-art map offers a way to continue browsing. This particular wall rewards attention to how an image, its predecessor and a community’s future occupy the same surface.

Source: Birmingham Live