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Street Art Stroll

What: Street Art Stroll

Where: Shoreditch/Hoxton, London

When:  Now - 14th September 2008

How (much?): Free

We hear all about street art, from the twelve-year-old kids with a Sharpie to hip celebrities spending dollars on original Banksy prints. But is this as far as our mileage stretches? Since the 80s, the art form’s exploded into various sub-genres from stencils, stickers and even ceramic tiles to help push the movement forward. Recognising this, Time Out have designed Street Art Stroll -  a free downloadable map by which to explore the stencilled streets of East London.

Debuting the trail is mural by Mighty Monkey on Bacon Street, though it did take 30 minutes to stumble across… Next was Sclater Street, where we anticipated work by Sickboy and Nylon. Sadly London City Council had done the dirty with their black paint, shoving the whole "graffiti = art" debate down your throat while you’re deliberately aiming to appreciate it. Of course, this wasn’t enough for the authorities, as they’d decided to close off our next port of call Holywell Lane just to smite us. Making up for this however, is the glorious London burning collective mural, spanning a good 15 metres across. Other favourites include work by Shepard Fairy, plenty of 'Space Invader' tiled pieces to spot and a final theatrical bow by Banksy’s ‘authorised graffiti area' at Cargo.

Verdict: Tourism for graffiti connoisseurs to the humble rookie. We liked it so much we’ve embedded a space invader game (in honour of their tile murals) for you to play in our games section. Go play it now!

From left to right: Poster by Shepard Fairy and mural by Eine

Download your map from http://www.timeout.com/media/street_art_walk.pdf

Words and photography: Jonathan Baker