- 2 days ago
How often do you notice murals on buildings? Do you think you see more graffiti in some places than others?
Join Roni Glasthal as she explores the street art community in Kent and discusses with councils and artists how the social perspective of graffiti has changed over recent years - or if it has at all.
Join Roni Glasthal as she explores the street art community in Kent and discusses with councils and artists how the social perspective of graffiti has changed over recent years - or if it has at all.
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00:00Imagine walking down your local high street to see a wall like this.
00:10Or this. Or this.
00:13Would you think about them all the same way?
00:15Would you see a clear difference between each of them?
00:17Graffiti and street art have a long history here in the county,
00:20but how have public perspectives of it changed over the years?
00:23Well here in Ashford, the local council are continuously investing in both businesses
00:27and artists to create works that they believe will add to the identity of the town.
00:32This is Ashford Unframed.
00:34The council got together and started to think about how it can best reshape the town centre.
00:39And there were so many strands to that, but a creative strand to that was
00:44we've got a lot of places and areas in the town that could do with a bit of a lick
00:49of paint.
00:49So we started to think about adding one or two murals.
00:52Come a year later, we had a mural trail with lots of local, regional and international artists
00:59coming to Ashford to create their wares.
01:01As a council, we see a huge benefit in working with the skills and the talents of artists,
01:07because the power of artists means that they can come together, they can show off their talents.
01:11Since the project's launch, does the public agree it's been a positive addition to the town?
01:16Oh yes, of course it is.
01:18If it wasn't, we'd get a lot of graffiti on it and there's very little graffiti.
01:23Yeah, I like it, I like it.
01:25I think it brings attention and I see loads of posts about it and stuff,
01:28so people are getting their attention.
01:30It makes it look less plain.
01:32I think it's fabulous, it's lovely, it's beautiful.
01:35Yeah, I'm all for it.
01:37It really enhances the area.
01:39However, the trail looks a little different today than when it was first applied to the town.
01:43Some of the murals we expect to be there for two, three months and they've lasted years.
01:50Some, some murals have already come down, but the reason why they've come down is because
01:55there was a great opportunity to put a mural on a building before it does come down.
02:00One piece in particular that has already come down was done by local artist Sam Cox,
02:04better known as Mr. Doodle.
02:06So why would an artist agree to do a piece knowing it would one day be nothing more than a
02:11pile of rubber?
02:11The nature of street art and graffiti is, it is really very temporary.
02:17But the good thing is that the world we live in now with being able to share images and videos
02:22and documenting everything online and there's like a different outlet to what it was before.
02:28Like in years gone past, it would have been only people who lived in the area who would have seen
02:34that mural.
02:35But now because there's such a global audience for everything potentially, like painting that wall
02:41was probably seen by a thousand times the amount of people online that actually saw in person or probably, you
02:47know, more than that.
02:48So for me, as long as I can kind of, you know, take something from doing that wall or a
02:53project like that,
02:54even if it falls apart or almost instantly after, the artwork really is the video of it more than the
03:03mural in some ways.
03:05Now, while some councils are investing in the recreation of their towns, others are putting their funds to preserving theirs.
03:11Let's see how much residents would guess Canterbury City Council spend each year on graffiti removal in the city.
03:27A request through the Freedom of Information Act shows the following figures the council has spent over the last 10
03:33years,
03:33with the figure growing significantly each year over the last five years, amounting to the most recent being more than
03:39130,000 pounds.
03:41First of all, if we look at the fact that the figures for 2020, which was COVID, is a huge
03:50dip, isn't it?
03:51And that's because people were prevented from going out and so forth.
03:55But I can see that a resident would say to me, hang on a minute, Conny, 130,000 pounds, that's
04:02an awful lot of graffiti removal.
04:03And my answer is my inbox gets chock-a-block with people complaining about graffiti.
04:10And when I go to speak to the team, I find that they've already dealt with it.
04:14And that's because we've got a rapid response team now, and that costs money.
04:18And I think it's important that people understand that graffiti isn't something that can be sort of dealt with easily.
04:26When people are graffitiing on ancient monuments, that takes some skill and proper expertise in making sure in taking the
04:35graffiti off, we're not down in between those ancient monuments.
04:38Now, while some areas are investing, others have created their own solutions by opening spaces that have developed reputations that
04:45allow for public tagging.
04:46One of which is the Margate Lido, where I'm speaking to artist Cat Neal about what it's like to be
04:50an anonymous artist today.
04:51One of the aspects about being anonymous that I enjoy is that I can kind of put all of my
04:56energy and love and care into my paintings.
05:00And then I can kind of step back from it and I can let the world see it without it
05:03being, you know, necessarily a reflection of me.
05:06When you see people like Banksy, like obviously the anonymity is a big part of the mystery behind him.
05:12I thought it was quite funny that when he got unmasked recently, all the memes were like, oh, they discovered
05:17who Banksy was and it's just some guy.
05:19Like there was ever an expectation that he was going to be some sort of superhero or something.
05:23And again, I guess part of what I like about the anonymity is that when people see my work, they
05:28don't, you know, they don't see it as me.
05:30They see it as some externalized, mystical, mythological or whatever.
05:34Like my art doesn't have all of the stigma that I have attached to me. It's just out there like
05:39pure and clean for anyone to respond to it how they like.
05:42There is a certain level of celebrity that you can achieve in this world.
05:46That's not something I'm looking for for myself.
05:49Like if I can get my work out there and if I can get more people interested in it, ultimately,
05:53I'd like to be able to make a living doing this.
05:55And yeah, without being widely known, it's going to be harder to make a living.
06:01I've always kind of thought with my art career that it's one of the benefits that graffiti writers have and
06:06street artists have is that they can put their work out in the world without seeking permission, without having to
06:12get authority or like approval from galleries or people in the art world.
06:17Another anonymous Margate artist I spoke with is Chalkboy, who, as you may have guessed by his name, is approaching
06:22his art with a slightly different medium, Chalk.
06:25The thing with the Chalk is you don't need anything other than a bit of chalk and a wall.
06:30I find it personally quite powerful because everyone's picked up a bit of chalk when they're a child and done
06:36something with it.
06:37And is the chalk, is it graffiti? Is it street art? Is it legal? Is it not legal?
06:42And there are some pieces that I've done that are maybe under a bit of cover or something, so they'll
06:48be there for a while.
06:49But I've done ones like the Shared Space Globe was there for four hours, I think, before it went because
06:55people were just walking over it.
06:58So if people are interested in them, they're only there for a short amount of time.
07:04I find it like that. I'm not precious about it. It's like, just put it up and then it might
07:08rain in an hour and the whole lot will be gone.
07:10Yeah, I think it's got an innocence about it. Just writing stuff on, or drawing stuff in chalk, I think
07:17it's cool and simple.
07:18Other than the unknown legality around your work, why be an anonymous artist?
07:23Just for peace and quiet, really. Just to be able to go about your thing, go about your day-to
07:28-day life without being bothered, I think.
07:31But put the attention on the art, do you know what I mean? That's where it's at.
07:37People are always going to be interested in people, I think, especially in this modern day, but that's not for
07:43me.
07:44We've heard a lot of terms in these conversations. Murals, street art, graffiti. But what defines them and differentiates them
07:50from one another?
07:50I think it's kind of key as an artist to just do the things you want to do and express
07:55yourself and not try to steer it to a box on purpose,
07:59but just kind of do what feels right and let people decide what it is afterwards.
08:04Some people see graffiti as like the pure art form and street art is like a watered down version of
08:11it.
08:11But then some street artists might say that street art is the fully developed art form and that graffiti is
08:17like the primitive version of it.
08:19And yeah, I think maybe both of those things are true.
08:23Like the energy behind graffiti is far more interesting, in my opinion, than the energy between behind a street art
08:31piece that's been painted with permission.
08:32Like the medium is the message to some extent, like see something written illegally on the wall.
08:37It kind of has an extra energy with it than it might have if it was just put on a
08:42poster that was put up on like a legal advertising board.
08:45I think the line would be, they are different, but the line is very grey, very blurred.
08:51If someone goes into Poundland and buys a spray paint, a can and does a tag, they would get in
08:58trouble if they were caught and it would be called graffiti and vandalism.
09:01If Banksy comes down and does a massive thing, the whole world is celebrating. It's exactly the same thing. There's
09:06no difference.
09:07It's a guy with paint defacing something.
09:10So I think it's kind of all okay really.
09:12I mean, we're sat here talking about it, so do you know what I mean? It's got its place, it's
09:17got its purpose.
09:18And someone like Banksy didn't start off by doing incredible stencil work and getting millions of people to look at
09:25it for millions of pounds.
09:26I don't know this for a fact, but I would imagine he bought a can of spray paint somewhere and
09:30went around practicing with it.
09:32And it's a bit of a sort of a case of no mud, no lotus.
09:36Do you know what I mean? You've got to have **** to get the beautiful stuff.
09:41People need to learn, people need to practice.
09:42And also, I'm sure other people are putting this out, if you have a big white wall, you'll get 20
09:48little tags on it and then more tags.
09:50And then someone will do something a bit bigger and someone else will do something a bit bigger.
09:53And then a week later, there's an incredible wall mural on it by a well-known graffiti artist.
09:59It's all part of the process. I think it has to start somewhere.
10:03So what does the future for street art look like in Kent?
10:06We're encouraging every developer and every development or every business to get involved.
10:12If they have a space and they want to commission their own artists, it doesn't necessarily have to come out
10:17of the public funds or sponsorship funds.
10:19I would like residents to carry on reporting it because we want to, we can't have our eyes and ears
10:25everywhere.
10:26So residents, please carry on reporting and we will make sure that the graffiti is removed.
10:30I think anyone can, should be able to like have their, have their view, um, over whether they think like
10:38street art graffiti should exist or whether they like it or not.
10:43But, um, if there was a kind of rule in place that said like no street art and no graffiti
10:49can exist, I don't know how that would be put into action.
10:52But I also, I can't, I can't imagine a world where that would really be possible.
10:57What I'd say is sometimes you have to work outside the rules to cause like a positive impact in the
11:03world.
11:03I think there's loads of examples of that.
11:05And without sounding too big headed, that is the impact I'm trying to have on the world.
11:10Like I'm trying to make people, you know, think a little bit differently about the world we live in.
11:14Like even just seeing that a tag has been done illegally to me communicates the message that like, yes, there
11:20are rules,
11:21but it's down to you to decide which are the moral rules, which are the ones worth following.
11:25I prefer the world with a bit of chaos.
11:27Like I prefer the world with a bit of unpredictability.
11:30And I think that's the price worth paying for people occasionally being upset by seeing a tag somewhere that maybe
11:37it shouldn't be.
11:37It is what it is. It will be what it is.
11:39It's a, it's a big animal with lots of moving pieces in it.
11:43And it's, you know, that's what it is.
11:46Whether I'm in it or not in it, it's still going to be doing its thing.
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