On Monday in the East End, Graffiti Writer Seeds One set to paint the four panels comprising the Shoreditch Art Wall along Great Eastern Street. In the absence of advertisement agencies taking order of the Shoreditch Art Wall, one of the premier walls for passing traffic in the East End, the people who run the wall have been allowing artists to paint the art wall free of charge and in the process brought some lovely art works to this feature wall in the heart of Shoreditch. Seeds One dispensed with the opportunity to promote his own art and instead decided to speak up for someone else and for something he passionately believes in, namely the release of Chelsea Manning, a US soldier who was sentenced in 2013 to 35 years imprisonment, for disclosing nearly three-quarters of a million classified and unclassified documents  to Wikileaks.

Painting the piece very quickly and presumably not expecting the statement to last the coming days, we ourselves were delighted to see this powerful call to raising awareness is still in fact on the Shoreditch Art Wall, which is believed to receive a footfall of 250,000 people a week. It additionally can’t be argued that this is possible to ignore when you walk past the Art Wall, Seeds One had a message to share and he has certainly succeeded.This isn’t the first time Seeds One has painted works overtly relating to this message for freedom for those who support freedom of information and end up imprisoned or as a recurring side not in his regular works, a subject very much at the core of his beliefs. In his own words Seeds One stated:

“Painted this…in three hours including blacking out the old piece, had to be done fast. The typography suffered but its not about that. I want people to Google Chelsea’s name. her acts were nothing short of heroic. The fact she is imprisoned is a travesty. Same for Barrett Brown and Jeremy Hammond and variety of other people who have been silenced in their quest for truth for the people. This wall is always used for adverts and artists promoting themselves. I thought I would try and put it to better use. Now please go learn more about Chelsea Manning and why we should all be helping. I recommend couragefound.org as a good place to start. Thanks for reading.”