With my first visit of the British island in 2016 my fascination for the UK was born. I might not be able to keep up with their local drinking habits, but meanwhile I’ve met a lot of really nice and also super talented people. My good friend INKIE – an english graffiti legend for the surroundings of Massive Attacke and Banksy – invited us for the event BoogieDownBristol. So I had to go. Bristol is not just an amazing city, but also one of the biggest street art and graffiti metropolis of England. Their street art tours for example became one of the major things for tourists – urban art in no matter what way or form is omnipresent and people just can’t imagine the cityscape without it.
The lineup of BoogieDownBristol was awesome: INKIE, NILKO, MR.CENZ, TIZER, CHEO, SOKER, BONZAI or EPOK just to name a few of the guys.
After a warm welcome by my man INKIE we went straight to one of the 5 local stores which sell everything you need for writing and more. It was time to paint the first wall with VOYDER and INKIE in Stokes Croft. A good tip: the shop PEOPLES REPUBLIC OF STOKES CROFT does not just sell amazing prints and handmade porcellain cups and plates with funky designs, but the owner Chris Chalkley is also a huge graffiti and street art enthusiast. He takes care of writers visiting from all over the world and helps them to find a good wall, provides ladders and – guess what – tea. What a cool guy! Along the way he invited me to have a look at his production where all the fancy cups were designed and produced. What a great craft!
After my buddy NILKO arrived from Paris, we went out for dinner which ended up with an endless rum tasting in different bars around the ATTIC BAR – this was also the main event location where we did spent our short nights. We had an amazing evening in this area.
The next day was all about Graffiti – and some more rum. I try to not drink too much during the day so that I can focus on painting as much as possible – and so I was able to paint 3 pieces. After this we went back to our location and Jeru the Damja was ready to get the crowd to party. But we had so much paint left … so we decided to get ourselves out of bed at 9am and paint a little hangover-leftover-wall in another part of the city, before I had to fly back to Basel.
It was a short and intense trip with a lot of familiar faces. Thank you so much again to the „Don“ Inkie for being a great host and this awesome time.
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