General Information

The Cans Festival was an urban art festival held from 3–5 May 2008 in London and organised by the noted street artist Banksy. It took place in an abandoned tunnel on Leake Street, London. Banksy’s intention was to ‘transform a dark forgotten filth pit’ into ‘an oasis of beautiful art’.

Additional Information

The festival’s name was coined as a play on the name of the French Cannes Film Festival. As Banksy said, ‘I’ve always felt anyone with a paint can should have as much say in how our cities look as architects and ad men’. The rules for the first Cans Festival were that no freehand lettering or characters would be sprayed on the tunnel walls, stencils had to be used and artists were not allowed to spray over works already present on the walls. Anyone who came to the exhibition with paint and a stencil could report to a manned reception, where they were provided with a space in the tunnel to put up their art. It was reported that while police patrolled the tunnel vigilantly throughout the duration of the exhibit nobody was charged with criminal damage.

Cans Festival II – Street Art Recycled: Highlights

The first Cans Festival resulted in a number of spin-off events, all of which took place in the same tunnel. These included a second street art festival Cans Festival II – Street Art Recycled, which was held in August the same year. The result is striking – the space is completely reworked with the focus more on street art in its purest form and less on more populist stencil work.