A guerilla art group put up pictures of Brighton’s housing estates over photographs of more traditional tourist attractions at Brighton Station this week.
Pictures of Kestrel Court in Whitehawk, and Moulsecoomb, Bevendean, and Lockwood Close in Woodingdean have been framed in place of previous tourism marketing photos displayed at Brighton Station.
Pattern Up, who describe themselves as a revolutionary art collective, say installing the photos of the housing estates was done to criticise how Brighton’s lower income areas are often ignored.
The pictures were up for about three hours yesterday before railway staff took them down.
A spokesperson for Pattern Up said: “We chose to do this as we believe Visit Brighton is glorifying the city, publicising so called iconic areas in Brighton but ignoring the poverty problem and purposely missing the promotion of low income areas.
“Areas such as Whitehawk, Woodingdean, Moulsecoomb and Bevendean are reported on as the lowest income parts of the city but are just as iconic as the areas that have been advertised on the boards.”
The photographs were placed on the covered pedestrian walkway from the station concourse to the taxi rank on Stroudley Road.
A spokesperson for GTR said: “The pictures had to be removed because they weren’t authorised.
“They were noticed by staff around 5.30pm yesterday and were removed by just before 8pm.”
The art group have previously been responsible for posters saying “designated crack and heroin zone” in Brighton, which featured the Brighton and Hove City Council logo, with similar posters put up in Amsterdam, Dublin and London.
Pattern Up – also a slang term used to mean ‘fix up, get in shape or to respect your elders’ – have previously been featured in Brighton Fringe exhibitions.
Brilliant! Very clever. I look forward to hearing about more of Pattern Up’s work.
Brighton is mostly a large housing estate with some shops, pubs and a pebble beach. Oh I forgot the I360