Street artist Banksy has covered the inside of a London Underground carriage with images of a sneezing rats in a message about the spread of coronavirus and face masks.
The enigmatic figure uploaded a 59-second video captioned “If you don’t mask – you don’t get” to his Instagram and YouTube pages on Tuesday afternoon.
It begins with a laptop playing footage showing the London Underground being deep cleaned in May.
Banksy, wearing a white boiler suit, mask, goggles, blue gloves and an orange hi-vis jacket with the message “stay safe” printed on it, is then seen posing as a Transport for London worker.
He makes his way to a Circle Line train, carrying a yellow pump action spray bottle and stencils in cardboard on board.
As an announcement states that “the next station is Baker Street”, the artist sprays blue droplets from the face of one of his famous rats, which has been stencilled on the carriage.
Banksy indicates for another masked passenger to move back, before stencilling a rat using a blue face mask as a parachute.
Another rat has a blue mask over its face, while one holds a bottle of hand sanitiser.
The video finishes with a message sprayed on the wall of a Tube station reading: “I get lockdown” with the doors of the Tube carriage closing to reveal the message “But I get up again”.
Chumbawamba’s song Tubthumping – also known as I Get Knocked Down – plays as the doors touch together.
There are two rats, one on each of the carriage’s doors, looking at each other.