Dr Lee Bofkin | Co-founder & CEO, Global Street Art

Building Our Future

One man’s mission to live in painted cities; how can street art transform both buildings and communities?

Holding a PhD in Evolutionary Mathematics from Cambridge, Lee was a former break-dancer with the Soul Mavericks Crew where he represented the UK and he has travelled the world extensively documenting street art world-wide.

In 2012, he co-founded Global Street Art with a mission to live in painted cities. This is achieved in three ways:

1. Curating the world’s largest online street art platform with artists from over 100 countries and hundreds of thousands of photographs and over half a million followers on social media;
2. Organising legal street art murals; having organised over 2,000 since 2012;
3. Forming an agency that works on commercial projects.

In this podcast:

• What is street art and how is it already shaping our cities?
• What role does art have in helping to create vibrant communities?
• How are brands helping to fund the growth of street art?
• How does street art retain authenticity as it enters a new, “legal” era?
• Is street art designed to challenge communities or represent them?
• Can we measure the impact of street art on a location?

Lee’s favourite building is the Schindler House in West Holywood; an experiment in 1920’s social architecture and arguably an early forbear of the current trend of co-living. His hot pick for innovation in the sector is Gyana AI, focused on retail analytics.

The recommended addition to the Building Our Future reading list is:

• Frans Johansson, The Medici Effect: what elephants and epidemics can teach us about innovation

You can find & follow Lee and Global Street Art on social media via Instagram or Twitter for further information.
Image courtesy of Tony Briggs (http://www.tonybriggs.com/_photo_15181401.html)