This was the moment a student from Bristol stole Banksy’s honorary professorship from a university graduation ceremony. The illustrious street artist was awarded the professorship earlier this month by the University for the Creative Arts (UCA) to highlight his "humanitarian efforts and the impact he has had on the global arts scene".
Ben Wray, 23, from Henleaze, graduated in Film and Digital Art from the university on July 6 and was the student who swiped the certificate bestowed to the anonymous artist - who, unsurprisingly, did not show up for the event. “It was very much a spur-of-the-moment, moment of madness,” Ben explained.
Around 3,000 students, faculty and parents gathered at the Royal Festival Hall on South Bank, London on that day in July. Students were called on stage to be congratulated on completing the university courses, but this year there was no handshake and no certificate due to Covid.
Read more: Banksy to be made Honorary Professor of arts university
Recalling the ceremony, Ben said: “When my row got called up, I was thinking how could I make this a bit more memorable? When I was ready to walk across the stage I just decided not to do anything.”
However, when his name was accidentally missed by the speaker, he was ushered out of the queue and told he had to wait backstage until the end. He was able to convince the steward to let him back into the auditorium to watch the rest of the presentation until it was his time on stage once again.
“They took a break and did a speech about Banksy and awarded him an honorary professorship from the University for the Creative Arts. They placed a scroll on a chair on stage that has a sign saying reserved for Banksy.
“It was the only scroll or certificate that was on stage and I was pretty set on getting a certificate that day, with it being graduation. Their mistake of not reading out my name gave me an extra hour to stare at the scroll on the chair and work out what I was going to do.”
When it came to his moment, he said: “I walked across, took a quick turn after the chairwoman and grabbed it. The person next to the chair tried to grab it back but I managed to yank it out of his hand and hold it victoriously up.”
Ben said he swiftly exited the stage and hid in the audience, concealing the scroll up the sleeve of his graduation robe. He added that one person made an attempt to ask for the scroll back stating his would be arriving in the post. “I told her I would send my real one back in the post,” he added.
The University for the Creative Arts declined to comment when approached by BristolLive. The professorship is still in Ben’s bedroom and currently, no one from the faculty has contacted Ben to request it back.
When asked whether he thought the university might demand the certificate back, Ben replied: “There’s no reason that I’m not Banksy.
“I think they’re too embarrassed that it happened,” he said. “They have sort of pretended it didn’t happen even though I have tagged them in my Instagram post. I spoke to three of my tutors afterwards and two of them found it funny.”
Ben said Banksy’s Instagram account acknowledged his Instagram post that explained he stole his professorship by liking the post, only to quickly remove it seconds later.
I just happened to be on my phone at the time. I saw it and managed to get a screenshot of it. I went to screen record it, as I thought ‘this is easily photoshopable, which is a good way to prove it happened. When I refreshed the app it disappeared.”
Since graduating, Ben is now working as a visual effects artist and freestyle racing drone operator for music videos.
Up next:
