It’s not the most well known place on the street art scene. In fact Soho has never really broken through as a must see stop on the street art map, there are too many other distractions. Despite all this however, it was here where 2017’s street art scene really kicked off, in the centre of Soho itself.
Admittedly the venue wasn’t open to the public. In fact we were under instructions not to reveal it at all. The location was in an old office block known as the Brokendown Palace, completely gutted of any fixtures of fittings but now marking it’s time prior to redevelopment by playing host to artists in need of studio space and acting as a venue for the odd graffiti workshop.
Organised by our friends at London Calling Blog, this was the second time they’d put on a jam to mark their blogging birthday, they are now officially two years old and well established on the street art scene. Playing host to artists from across the area, London Calling might just have to put on a few more because they sure do know how to host a paint jam.
Taking place over the Saturday and Sunday of the first weekend in January and occupying spots over seven floors of the building. For bloggers and regular followers of the scene it was also a good chance to catch up with pretty much everyone being there to take pics and spread all over social media.
So, for the time being who knows, Soho may well become one of the go to places to see street art but for the moment anything that does go on will be behind closed doors. As for the rest of the city, it’s anyone’s guess what 2017 will bring. Already a lot of the spots artists have gotten used to in the East End are being redeveloped so finding places to paint will become ever harder and it’s against this backdrop that we’ll be following the action.
One thing we do know though, London’s street art scene is a vibrant one with a lot of creativity and a lot of imagination and so we can be confident that art will always find a way.
The London Calling new year paint jam was hosted at the Brokendown Palace (not its real name) on the weekend of 7 and 8 January 2017. For last years paint jam have a look here.
Paint Jam Gallery
Darn – I heard about this but didn’t know it was hidden. I wanted to check it out
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