Flying Balloon Girl

Flying Balloon Girl
Original mural on the West Bank wall in 2006
Artist	Banksy
Year	2005 (2005)

Flying Balloon Girl, also known as Balloon Debate, is a 2005 stencil mural in the West Bank by the graffiti artist Banksy, depicting a young girl holding a bunch of seven balloons floating above the 8 meter-high wall built around the Palestinian enclave near the Qalandia checkpoint.[1][2]

It represents perhaps the first piece of West Bank Wall graffiti art to have received international acclaim, serving as a form of "transnational and experiential empathy".[3] In its original context, the artwork is thought to refer to the Palestinian right to freedom of movement and possibly to the Palestinian right of return.[4]

It has been described as: "poignantly simple", with its message "as basic as the artwork: through magic realism and notions of childhood innocence, the young girl embodies a dreamy, supernatural hope as the balloons lift her up from her stark surroundings."[5] As such its message has become universal, as John Lennon, associate professor of English at the University of South Florida, describes:[5]

As an image alone, though, there is of course no connection between this girl and the Palestinian desire to return. Instead, Flying Balloon Girl represents a universal desire to magically escape life's difficulties. A decade after Banksy placed the stencil on the Separation Wall, his image has become not a statement on Palestinian rights but a familiar image of the Banksy brand.

See also

• List of works by Banksy
• 2005 in art

References

1. Grovier, Kelly (2017-12-15). "How a balloon can be an emblem of hope". BBC. Retrieved 2018-10-15.
2. Kim, Adela H. (2014-03-26). "Banksy and the Wall". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2018-10-15.
3. Ball, Anna (2013). "Impossible Intimacies: Towards a Visual Politics of "Touch" at the Israeli-Palestinian Border". In A. Valassopoulos (ed.). Arab Cultural Studies: History, Politics and the Popular. Taylor & Francis. pp. 71–72. ISBN 978-1-317-98105-3. Retrieved 2022-05-15.
4. Lennon, J. (2022). Conflict Graffiti: From Revolution to Gentrification. University of Chicago Press. pp. 99–101. ISBN 978-0-226-81567-1. Retrieved 2022-05-15. Flying Balloon Girl could speak to a transcendent desire to return to a time when no barriers separated Palestinians from their former land.
5. Lennon, J. (2022). Conflict Graffiti: From Revolution to Gentrification. University of Chicago Press. pp. 99–101. ISBN 978-0-226-81567-1. Retrieved 2022-05-15.