Inside the Big Issue: Paste Present Future: The art of protest

Creative studio Grow Up is helping us celebrate our 35th birthday with a major new exhibition exploring the big issues facing modern society.

The project will see artworks postered around London, before being showcased in an exhibition at Laundry Studios in Hackney.

“This new show, Paste Present Future, is about retaining our freedom of speech rights and the power of protest that seems to be slowly eroding, to not take things lying down or burying your head in the sand,” writes Blam from Grow Up.

“I am very much an advocate of ‘silence is compliance’. From my experience of pasting art up on the streets, I was fascinated by how much quicker the message caught fire and was shared and resonated with a wider audience.”

Buy our mag to see all the art. Limited-edition prints will also be available in the Big Issue Shop, with 25% of the proceeds going towards our mission to end poverty.

What else is in this week’s Big Issue?

The reality of life in NEET Britain: ‘I do what I can but unfortunately it’s never enough’

In the most recent official account, the number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEET) had fallen below one million, but it offers little reason for celebration. The Office for National Statistics figures counted 981,000 young people aged between 16 and 24 who were considered NEET between April and June this year. We spoke to NEETs about what it’s like.

The many faces of homelessness

Brock Elbank is a renowned portrait photographer who has held exhibitions across the world. But for the last couple of years he’s been living a secret life – homeless and sleeping in his car. Here, he explains how he’s turned his circumstances into a journey of discovery

Soap springs eternal

Between 7 and 9 August, Chris Sylvester spent 60 hours in a bathtub in Leeds City Square. He was there to raise the profile of Getting Clean – a soap company that he founded in 2021 on the principles of community, recovery and enterprise for sustainability – as well as raising money for a lived-experience recovery project, delivered in collaboration with Forward Leeds. He let Big Issue join him in the tub to learn more about his remarkable journey.

Kelly Macdonald’s Letter to my Younger Self

A chance open casting changed her life forever. But even before Trainspotting, she always knew she was destined to go far beyond the shopping centre.

““Where I lived in Newton Mearns, people didn’t really leave,” she said. “When you left school you got a job in the shopping centre. If you were really doing well, you got a job in Boots the Chemist.”

“But even at 16, I was thinking, well, I don’t intend to stop at Glasgow. And I didn’t.”

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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