Bogota is the capital of Colombia and it’s cultural centre is street art heaven. Artists use various media including acrylic, stencil, aerosol and sculpture. Some prominent artists are even commissioned for commercial works.
In Bogota, street art was used traditionally as a medium of protest. This was especially true during La Violencia, a ten year civil war which started in 1948 and cost an estimated 200000 lives. Unfortunately not much of this original street art survives.
In recent years, however, the Bogota street art scene has exploded. Many continue the tradtion of using the medium as means of social protest. For example one massive mural you can see below protests against U.S. policy supporting cocaine eradication. Plan Colombia, which ran for 10 years, was believed to have exacerbated problems. One of the KPIs was body count. This resulted in many homeless being kidnapped, taken to the countryside, dressed up as guerillas and murdered.
Most of the pictures here were taken on the Bogota Graffiti Tour.
