Wish Upon a Star: Banksy’s Identical Christmas Murals Shine a Light on Youth Homelessness, London
Banksy has shared his Christmas message, confirmed via his official website and instagram account, and it arrives with a quiet yet resonant Christmas message.
Centre Point
The first mural appeared in front of the Centre Point building, often referred to as the “North Star”, near Tottenham Court Road. Two children lie on the ground, one arm extended, pointing skyward. The image immediately resonated with long-standing themes in Banksy’s practice: visibility, homelessness, and the politics of urban space. Read more in our coverage here.
Location 1, Centre Point. Image copyright Marrosi
The well-known youth homelessness charity, Centrepoint, was founded in 1969 by the Reverend Kenneth Leech. It was named specifically after the building as a protest against the “affront” of a massive skyscraper sitting empty while people were sleeping on the streets nearby.
The ‘centred’ point of the child in reference to the building anchors the scene firmly in contemporary London, shifting the mural from the luxury apartments to child homelessness. This backdrop matters. In the UK today, an estimated 4.5 million children, 31% of all children, are living in poverty and one young person becoming homeless every four minutes. For many youth, Christmas is not a season of abundance or wonder, but one of absence: no presents, no festive meals.
Against this context, the act of lying on the pavement and looking up becomes quietly political. The children in Banksy’s mural are not romanticised figures; they exist within an urban economy where inequality is structural, visible, and increasingly normalised.
Location 1, Centre Point. Image copyright Marrosi
Second Location
Now, the familiar image reappears in a new location in a second identical mural. Painted on the back of an abandoned building in Queens Mews, Bayswater, the mural is a deliberate repetition of the earlier scene. Banksy shares the work at night on his instagram account, when its meaning comes into focus.
Location 2, Queens Mews. Image copyright Banksy
In the photograph, perspective does the work. The children are no longer pointing abstractly upwards; their gesture aligns precisely with a single red light on the surrounding scaffolding. Through this alignment, the light is transformed, by the viewer, into a star.
Location 2, Queens Mews. Image copyright Banksy
This is the mural’s quiet genius, the star is not painted. By allowing the environment to complete the image, Banksy extends the artwork beyond the wall itself, connecting place, time, and perception.
Location 2, Queens Mews. Image copyright Banksy
As with the Centre Point mural, timing is essential. Only after dark, when the building’s luxury apartments lights come on, does the work fully reveal itself, mirroring a night sky and inviting a moment of stillness and reflection.
Banksy’s latest mural series shines a light on youth homelessness, support the work of Centrepoint, the youth homelessness charity born in protest, to help change that reality by donation here.