Monthly Archives: April 2012

in the news again

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It’s great how the local press is getting behind the project, thanks Hackney Citizen and Hackney Gazette! And all the London and Street Art blogs! I really appreciate it!

http://hackneycitizen.co.uk/2012/04/27/nazir-tanbouli-artist-the-kings-land/

and it’s great that people come back to see the progress of the murals – http://standardfact.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/here-there-every-nazir/

The weather’s still vile but the work is all ready to rock out, and so as soon as we get the go ahead from the Weatherman we’ll get a full enhanced crew out there to blast the site with the biggest most astonishing creatures your deepest depths of imagination never conjured up!

this is just one tiny section of the creature!

Working all day, every day

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It’s been raining here in London, and that’s made me pause in the process of putting up murals. Every day I go to the studio and look at the work as it sits there in the rain and I wonder when the rain will stop and I’ll go out again.

If I was just painting I might go out and do it anyway – I did THE BOMB SHELTER mural in Valencia, Spain in the rain (video here) and it was manageable. But in THE KING’S LAND I am doing something much more sensitive and so I can’t work in the rain. So what to do?

The plan is to just keep working, all day and every day, drawing. Experimenting with drawings, working with different brushes, getting myself into that blissful Zen state when anything can happen. Not really thinking about it, just making a direct encounter between me and the brush. The thing you have to know about me, I love to draw. No, correct that – I LIVE to draw.

And in this process, enlightenment happens. I’ve got some clearer ideas as to how I’ll proceed when the rain stops and I’m out again. I have a vision for the next buildings.

I’ve got about 9 weeks left to go until I can say “I’m finished.”

– Naz

This one’s done

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The weather has been really awful for April! Very cold, which makes it hard to be mobile when dong the fine work, and occasional very heavy showers that come and undo your work soon as you’re happy with it.

Still, we’re going strong. This wall on Laburnum Street was completed yesterday:

 

The King’s Land is getting around

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The other day a producer called us and said they wanted to come by and film the murals and interview me for a BBC programme about London that will be part of the Olympics London 2012 coverage. We were happy to oblige. It was fun;  I put up some of my creatures and they filmed that, and our dear friend, photographer Lorena Balbinot, documented the day.

heading off

filming the action

in the studio talking about the project

I’m really glad people are enjoying The King’s Land as much as I am.

That’s Why I am Doing This

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Today I arrived at the studio and I found a note that had been slipped in the door before I got there. It’s not from any one I know, and this note moved me very much and made me remember – despite the rain and cold, the vandals, the expense, and the sheer hard work – exactly WHY I am doing this crazy mural project.

Here it is:


For those of you out there who don’t know, Oxfordshire is not anywhere near East London and I really appreciate the effort to come and see the work, and  to write me a note of appreciation.

“THE KING’S LAND” FILM

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We are making a film about the project and its broader context, and this film won’t be done til the project is done, and perhaps not until the estate itself is razed to the ground.

In the meantime we are producing short films and clips, some of which may end up the final film.

Just now we have put together a 22 min doc based on the material, a short film by Gillian McIver who is documenting the project, collecting footage of the process, interviews etc. This is going out for TV broadcast (days ad time to be posted  here) and also Internet. You can see it on Vimeo here:

http://vimeo.com/39961020