Space Girl and Bird appeared in 2003 in London. The work is executed in spray paint on industrial metal sheet and addresses the isolation created by technology.

At the centre of the work is a childlike girl figure; she wears a large deep-sea diver’s helmet, her ponytail protrudes from the helmet, she is dressed in a parka and holds a small, caricatural bird. The background is rough grey with faint pink hazard stripes; the composition is minimalist and striking: the girl’s innocence is distorted by the abstract threat of the helmet.

Banksy draws inspiration from Magritte’s Les Amants couple for the girl figure. He turns the helmet into a metaphor symbolising technology and industrialisation’s severance from nature.

He questions the isolation created by technology and industrialisation. While the helmet forms a barrier between the girl and the bird; symbol of freedom and nature, it transforms the promise of protection into disconnection. The work critiques the loneliness of the digital world, emotional tension and dystopian separation. Banksy emphasises how the industrial world corrupts innocence and alienates us from nature.

The work was used as the cover image for the 2003 album Think Tank by the British rock band Blur.