This piece is one of the simplest and most affectionate examples of how Banksy uses child figures.

It appeared in February 2008 in Hackney, east London, on the outside wall of a youth centre. In the image is a little girl, but she is not in a playground. She is sliding down a metal pipe that already existed on the building’s facade, exactly as though it were a slide. At the same time, she is blowing bubbles.

The whole idea of the piece lies in that detail. Banksy did not draw a slide on the wall; he took a structural element that was already there, entirely functional and with no aesthetic claim at all, and turned it into a piece of play equipment. The child invents a play area for herself that was never provided for her.

This is very typical of what Banksy has to say about the urban environment. The artist does not depict poverty or neglect directly here; instead, he shows children’s ability to find play even when no space has been set aside for them. The result is both joyful and sad: a child’s creativity is celebrated, while the conditions that made that creativity necessary are quietly acknowledged at the same time.

The soap bubbles are the key to this tone. In Banksy’s work, child figures are almost never simply cute; there is always some fragility, danger or irony alongside them. There is no element of danger here, but there is fragility: a bubble is about as short lived as anything can be, and the happiness this piece carries is exactly as durable.

The fact that the building is a youth centre adds a further layer of meaning. Banksy’s piece sits on the outside of a building set aside precisely for children and young people, on the outer wall, right on the drainpipe. So the space officially provided and the space the child finds for herself stand side by side on the very same facade.

Bubble Slide Girl is a fine example of Banksy’s approach of producing the most meaning with the least effort. The only thing added to the wall is a child figure; everything else is already supplied by the building itself.