UNITY Street Art Project

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heatheronhertravels/ / CC BY 2.0

Bristol is synonymous with graffiti. It's everywhere you look! And as we all know Banksy, one of the most infamous graffiti artists, is a born and bred Bristolian.

At UNITY we are starting up a Street Art Project to look at the different and diverse forms of graffiti and other street art from all over Bristol. Our UNITY street journalist Ruth has set up a blog dedicated to the project. All updates and events will be logged on here: http://www.unitystreetart.blogspot.com/

We want to gather together opinions and ideas about graffiti in Bristol working towards producing a zine or leaflet about what young people think about street art in their area.

To get started we will be doing a bit of vox popping at the Stokes Croft Street Festival on Saturday 22nd May (this weekend!): http://stokescroftstreetfest.wordpress.com/

The Stokes Croft Street festival is a culmination of a week of activities celebrating the area's exciting and vibrant diversity. Sounds right up UNITY's street!

If you are interested in getting involved with the UNITY Street Art Project, whether it's to write something, take photos or just express your opinion, get in touch.

Peoples Hustings College Green, Bristol

UNITY went down to College Green on Tuesday 4th May to check out the Peoples Hustings, organised by the Speakers Corner Trust.

Speakers’ Corner Trust is a registered charity which promotes free expression, public debate and active citizenship as a means of revitalising civil society in the UK and supporting its development in emerging democracies. (http://www.speakerscornertrust.org/)

Here are some thoughts from Ruth a UNITY volunteer: 

I went along today to hear what the politicians had to say at the Peoples Hustings on College Green today. It started with historical speeches, and that was really interesting, especially Emmeline Pankhurst. She talked about things that were most relevant for feeling disenfranchised. I think it is really relevant when she said, ‘No one can govern you, unless you give your consent.’

I thought it was good that there was a variety of people from different organizations in the community. And it was good to have a young person speaking, and not just the stereotype of a young person, but she spoke her own mind.
And the woman who spoke from SPAN was good and she had lots of good things to talk about.

It made me think that our own politics is about telling people that if they have a problem you will fix it, rather than having a proper discussion. Politicians need to be honest if they don’t agree or can’t fix something.

You can also hear three of the inspiring speeches from historical figures, Oliver Crowmwell, Emmeline Pankhurst and Winston Churchill.

Oliver Cromwell


Emmeline Pankhurst


Winston Churchill

Vox Pops around Cabot Circus

The Thursday before the election, UNITY was out and about on the streets of Cabot Circus, Bristol to find out the different reasons why people Do and Don't Vote. Oneil was our roving audio reporter, interviewing 14 people on their differing views. We spoke to people of all ages and found people passionate about politics and the elections as well as those disillusioned. Listen to some of the reasons people gave......

For Voting:

For Not Voting: