the street is our gallery

Through urban art, Said Dokins draws attention to climate change. ‘Three Flowers for London’ is the most recent series of murals made by Mexican artist Said Dokins,

where he intertwined visual poetry and calligraphy to reflect on climate change, problematizing from an aesthetic-political perspective the tensions between the world of the natural and artificiality; it’s a visual provocation to point at the urgent need to rethink our relationship with the environment.

Said Dokins painting in Central London Photo: Karoli

Four years ago, the artist intervened the walls of London to call atention on the forced disappearance of 43 students in Mexico. Now his back with a project carried out in three areas of London: Central London, Brick Lane and Hackney. In each zone, Dokins installed a calligraphic intervention piece based on a geometric pattern composed of 6 complete circles of the same diameter that form a hexagonal set. Spliced, these circumferences create symmetrical radial patterns that allude to the shape of the flowers. Each intervention contains the same pattern, but incomplete somewhere. His suggestive titles refer to realm of the organic, the machines and environmental pollution, evoking the dystopian vision of biopunk, while satirizing New Age’s mysticism.

Said Dokins @saidokins, Metal Germination (Detail) 1/1 -Ed 3, Three Flowers for London Series.
Tybalds Community Hall Basement, Blemunsdbury, Dombey St, Holborn, London WC1N 3PF. UK.

For Said Dokins, each piece represents a contamination of an organic ‘potency’, that is, each image shows a germinal stage that has been modified, infected or bogged down. This interrupted power may seem harmonious; however, it carries a destructive germ:

‘I think that today more than ever, we have to turn to nature, be conscious of our relationship with the environment in terms of global and local society, as we have lived through these weeks with Extintion Rebellion, a clear example that society is waking up, that this change is serious. I believe in art as a method of reflection and signaling from aesthetics, sometimes a visual way of asking things.’  Said Dokins.

Here you can find the murals and locations of the three Dokins’ walls in London:

Metal Germination. Central London
Tybalds Community Hall Basement, Blemunsdbury, Dombey St, Holborn, London WC1N 3PF. The first intervention in Central London, has the words Nature and Machine inside the figure.

Said Dokins @saidokins, Metal Germination 1/1 -Ed 3, Three Flowers for London Series.
Tybalds Community Hall Basement, Blemunsdbury, Dombey St, Holborn, London WC1N 3PF. UK.

Said Dokins @saidokins, Metal Germination (Detail) 1/1 -Ed 3, Three Flowers for London Series.
Tybalds Community Hall Basement, Blemunsdbury, Dombey St, Holborn, London WC1N 3PF. UK.

Poisoned Seed. Brick Lane.
36-20 Hanbury St, Spitalfields, London E1 6QR

In this piece, Dokins refers to the negative space as a formal structure and finds the simplest answer to nature in the poem of the former monarch and pre-Hispanic poet, Netzahualcoyotl:

“How shall I go?
Will I leave nothing after me on earth?
How should my heart act?
Do we come here to live in vain,
to sprout on the ground?
Let’s at least leave flowers
Let’s at least leave songs”

Said Dokins @saidokins, Poisoned Seed (Detail) 1/1 -Ed 2, Three Flowers for London series.
Address: 36-20 Hanbury St, Spitalfields, London E1 6QR UK.

Said Dokins @saidokins, Poisoned Seed (Detail) 1/1 -Ed 2, Three Flowers for London series.
Address: 36-20 Hanbury St, Spitalfields, London E1 6QR UK.

Dirty Metal Perfection. Hackney.
78 Mare St, London, E8 3SG, UK.

The last piece of the series shows the complete image of the flower. Dokins used black sprays to give the metallic tones a dirty look

Said Dokins @saidokins, Dirty Metal Perfection (Detail) 1/1 -Ed 3, Three Flowers for London series.
Address: 78 Mare St, London, E8 3SG, UK.

Said Dokins @saidokins, Dirty Metal Perfection 1/1 -Ed 3, Three Flowers for London series.
Address: 78 Mare St, London, E8 3SG, UK.

The curator of this series of interventions, Pablo Angel Lugo, tells us:
‘To dialogue with Dokins’ work, it is important to remember the organic. Both in shape and background. Calligraphy in its organic stroke, can’t find a better place of appreciation than London, this organic and growing city, undoubtedly worried about the situation of nature. There is a dialogue between the surviving flowers of Said, Extintion Rebellion and British Petroleum. A discussion in which Dokins strokes become the desperate cry of nature’.

This mural project was made in collaboration with Pèbèo, Paints for Fine Arts, in their 100th Year Anniversary, as well as the agencies Global Street Art, Not Banksy Forum, Glocal Art Markets Consultants Ltd. and the neighbors of the places where the murals were painted.

Murals locations

Said Dokins| THREE FLOWERS FOR LONDON
Metal Germination: Tybalds Community Hall Basement, Blemunsdbury, Dombey St, Holborn, London WC1N 3PF
Poisoned Seed: 36-20 Hanbury St, Spitalfields, London E1 6QR
Dirty Metal Perfection: 78 Mare St, London, E8 3SG, UK.