Banksy’s Season’s Greetings mural to be relocated to Port Talbot gallery

Is street art still street art once it’s been painstakingly disassembled and moved into an art gallery? This is the question that the people of Port Talbot might be pondering over their coffee this week as a Banksy artwork painted on the side of a steelworker’s garage in the town is carefully relocated to its brand new art museum.

The mural, which features a kid in cold weather gear playing in the ashes of a bin fire as if it were snow, appeared on the garage in December and is currently in the process of being disassembled by a squad of civil engineers. After covering the mural in resin, the team will drill at the external walls that host the artwork before hoisting it into a lorry so it can make its way to the gallery at the new Ty’r Orsaf development. The piece will be displayed in the space, which is located in a former police station, for a minimum of three years.

Our hearts go out to the engineers during a considerably stressful return to work after the bank holiday – the artwork was bought from the garage-owner, Ian Lewis, for a “six figure sum” in January by art dealer John Brandler, the Guardian reports.

Thanks to the ever-generous souls at the BBC, you can watch a brief film about the removal process below.