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People walking around Brixton, south London, on Wednesday night and Thursday morning noticed a very unusual photo campaign on the bus stops.

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The original images were created for a campaign (but not put on the bus stop) by a group called Legally Black -- four young activists from south London whose goal is to "combat the way black people are portrayed in the media."

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:55am PST

The four young people behind the artwork are Liv Francis-Cornibert, Shiden Tekle, Bel Matos da Costa, and Kofi Asante. They met in the Advocacy Academy, an organisation which Chief Advocate Amelia Viney describes as an "activism training programme for young people."

We spoke to Francis-Cornibert, who is 18 and in her final year at school. She got involved in the Advocacy Academy after a friend of hers participated in it the previous year, and Viney came to give an assembly.

"She ask[ed] what makes you angry," Francis-Cornibert said. "Not hot anger, like cold anger. What sits in your stomach about the world, that makes you think 'I need to change it. This is not right.'"

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:57am PST

"We basically want better representation of black people in media," she said about the project. "It's tackling issues such as underrepresentation first of all, but also misrepresentation."

Francis-Cornibert characterises misrepresentation as "having very stereotypical, archetypal roles for black actors."

She said the group is particularly interested in shedding light on a lack of black British narratives.

"At the moment I'm in love with Black Panther," she said. "It's phenomenal, but I feel like a lot of the time when we say things like 'Oscars so white' it's focussed on America and American media."

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:53am PST

While she says this is to an extent natural, as Hollywood is a much bigger industry than British film and television, she feels that there's been a backslide in British media in recent years.

"In the past there were a lot of shows like Desmond's," she says -- a sitcom that aired on Channel 4 from 1989 to 1994 with a predominantly black cast.

"But people our age couldn't name any shows like that."

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:45am PST

Legally Black's work was met with some resistance, and Francis-Cornibert described some of the criticism levelled at the posters.

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"A lot of people were complaining, 'Why are you trying to replace the white actors?'"

"Someone said 'you should just go and make all of the actors in 12 Years a Slavewhite then.' That's what I don'twant people to think the campaign's about. It's not like a pity thing."

The project is more about highlighting the inequality of representation in media using a satirical format, rather than a literal recommendation that white narratives be re-cast with black actors.

"It's not about taking a typically white show and making it black, it's about making a black show. Or a southeast Asian show. Any person of colour should feel like they're accurately represented in the media. It should be about making shows that are authentic to those people."

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:49am PST

"That's why I think Black Panther is so good," she said "I think seeing yourself out of archetypal roles is really important for any person of colour." She believes that seeing yourself outside of prescriptive stock roles is "subconsciously very important for your self-esteem and your sense of self-worth."

She also touched on the kind of uproar that erupts when actors and actresses of colour are cast in roles previously thought of as white roles. Not so long ago the casting of a black actress as Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child drew the ire of some.

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Jan 29, 2018 at 11:57am PST

"You'd think in a magical realm where pretty much anything goes, where the laws of gravity are defied, that you could have a black person there," said Francis-Cornibert. "But I think it begs the question of why, why are you so up in arms?"

Francis-Cornibert is really happy with the effect the photos have had, as she had previous experience with activism that had been disheartening. Her work with the Advocacy Academy fills her with confidence.

"It's all well and good me reading about the theory and knowing it and tweeting on Twitter about social injustice," she said, "but the fact that we actually went out and did activism, and [Amelia] taught us to run a campaign that actually is feasible, is really inspiring for me. It's why this means to much to me, because we've had small wins."

But Francis-Cornibert and the other members of Legally Black were as surprised as anyone to see the posters appearing at bus stops.

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The posters were in fact put up illicitly by Special Patrol Group, an organisation who specialises in "subvertising" -- hacking advertising space to replace it with art. Originally Legally Black had planned to put the posters on London buses, but this plan fell through when private advertisers failed to respond to Legally Black's messages. Enter Special Patrol Group.

They came across the posters when doing a workshop with the Advocacy Academy about ad-hacking.

"We just loved the posters," a member of Special Patrols who wished to remain anonymous told Mashable. "This is easily the best thing that I think we've been involved in, in any way shape or form.

"It hits the nail on the head so sweetly."

A post shared by LegallyBlack (@legallyblackuk) on Mar 1, 2018 at 3:51am PST

Without Legally Black or the Advocacy Academy's knowledge, two members of Special Patrol Group put the seven posters up on Wednesday night in freezing conditions.

"We were debating whether to call it off or not, because it was snowing," a member told us, "my fingers went completely numb."

But they soldiered on to get the posters up in time to surprise the young people for their graduation from the Advocacy Academy on Thursday.

Special Patrol Group's work inevitably gets taken down eventually. "It can be either hours or weeks sometimes, up to months," they told us.

It's unclear how long the posters will remain in Brixton, but it's safe to say they have already made quite an impression.

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