THE STREET ARTIST MAPPING LONDON'S LOCAL ICONS

A street artist has created a huge cartoon map of London to celebrate the capital's past and present cultural icons.

Angry Dan spent more than six months on the illustration, which features more than 850 landmarks and people - everything from Roman remains and world-renowned museums, to infamous housing estates and legendary chicken shops.

A 5,000 sq ft (465 sq m) version of it is to go on display in Stratford, east London, for the start of the London Mural Festival.

The Walthamstow-based artist said he wanted to "create one huge artwork to remind us all why London is such an amazing place to live".

The 40-year-old's work can often be found in the form of massive brightly coloured illustrated limericks painted on walls.

However, he was inspired to take to his studio and start the map following a stint as a London tour guide for some visiting foreign language students.

"That forced me to do all of this stuff that you usually wouldn't really do as an old-school Londoner, all the touristy stuff, and I completely fell in love with the city over and over again," he explains.

Dan spent more than 1,000 hours researching the piece, looking at blogs, Reddit and Facebook groups to find suggestions of what could be found in the city's different neighbourhoods.

Dan's extensive efforts were led by a desire to represent each area as well as possible - not least south London, being that he is someone who has lived north of the river for much of his 19 years in the capital.

"South London's a place where if people love it, then they really, really love it, you don't want to get it wrong, so I was really careful to do a lot of research about stuff to include," he said.

As a result, local landmarks like Forest Hill's quirkily named Ferfect Fried Chicken and Highgate's brutalist Whittington Estate feature alongside institutions like the National Gallery and the British Library.

Current and historical famous figures are also represented. Alan Turing’s Maida Vale birthplace is marked with a computer, while Mo Farah's trainer can be found in the south-west of the city.

On 8 September an enormous copy of the map will be pasted on the tarmac floor in Mandeville Place, in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, to celebrate the start of the London Mural Festival.

The event will see more than 100 different murals by various artists going up around the city throughout the month.

Dan says those visitors to Stratford in a week's time will be able to "interact with the map, walk all over it, have an ice cream and drop your ice cream on it, all that sort of stuff".

In the afternoon, they will be invited to tear up bits of it so they can take home their own little pieces of London.

"I'm not sure how neat and tidy that process is going to be but that's the general idea, anyway," he laughs.

The London Mural Festival runs from 5 to 29 September

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THE STREET ARTIST MAPPING LONDON'S LOCAL ICONS

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