No ball games first appeared as part of the famous Barely Legal exhibition in Los Angeles in 2006. Another version was installed on a wall in north London in 2009.
The work depicts a pair of children playing with a road sign bearing the words ‘No ball games’. They are using the sign as if it were actually a ball. The image, in the artist’s characteristic stencil style, is clearly laden with irony. The artist conveys the fact that even children’s play is now subject to strict controls and regulations. In true Banksy style, the work urges us to break these restrictive rules. The artist mocks overprotective governments – the so-called ‘nanny states’ – which interfere with personal choices, suggesting that even innocent, everyday activities such as playing ball outdoors are under state control. Of course, the children must be interpreted in a broader sense. They symbolically represent people in general, constantly monitored and regulated by a higher authority against which the artist warns us. In 2013, the mural created in Tottenham was removed from its original wall, divided into three parts and sold to fund projects for disadvantaged children. Against a neutral background, the figures of the children are in black and white, whilst the only splash of colour is the red of the sign.
