You might think that in a city like Brighton where you literally find street art on every single corner, a new graffiti isn’t really big news. But this one is a special one you should look out for next time you walk down Trafalgar Street.
A group of young people from the Brighton Youth Centre has created a graffiti mural for the Brighton Festival. The inspiration came in form of a piece of writing created by a member of Brighton Festival’s Storytelling Army.
The graffiti shows the head of a young girl with a pink fringe and cat-like eyes, surrounded by the outlines of a cup of coffee, a spoon,… In a speech bubble, it says “Are you sure? It’s ok. I’m skint. Just a water please.” with the immediate reply “Don’t be silly”.

The inspiring story that triggered off the creation of this new mural is the story of a woman talking about the kindness she experienced every time strangers buy her a coffee she can’t afford. It was written within the preparation sessions for Brighton Festival’s Storytelling Army, a collective of people from various backgrounds that will tell their stories in random locations all over Brighton this weekend.
And of course, as we are in Brighton, who says graffiti says Sinna One. The graffiti artist teaches art classes at Brighton Youth Centre and supervised the group during the project. He welcomed the opportunity to let them get their hands on a real graffiti project which at the same time “gives them a sense of working in the community”.
The new mural is on the wall of Coffee@33 on Trafalgar Street.