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A journey inside Victoria BC's thriving graffiti subculture, full of rich history and conflicts with the municipal government. Featuring interviews with 17 of the city's most notorious graffiti artists, this documentary paints a picture of Victoria's graffiti scene in it's entirety.
Transcript
00:00Graffiti, it is a problem in every city, everywhere.
00:04Greater Victoria is no different, and it seems to be on the rise lately.
00:07Tagging. Graffiti seems to be getting out of control.
00:10They say the subculture exists on taggers impressing each other.
00:13These individuals just come by and quickly spray paint their name
00:16dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
00:20Downtown Victoria Business Association and police call it a crime.
00:24Just a needless destruction of property.
00:26It serves really no purpose, and so we'd really like to put this to an end.
00:32The city is sort of crushing graffiti, and also any sort of youth culture.
00:37It seems like graffiti isn't really allowed.
00:39The downtown core wanted to eradicate graffiti completely.
00:43Victoria is so small, the property values are going up,
00:48so there's a lot less tolerance for vandalism.
00:51You know, on the island, we're insular.
00:53We're kind of shut off from the rest of the world in a lot of ways.
00:56It's kind of cool, we're like a little bit secluded.
00:58You're the only person out at night.
01:00It's pretty obvious what you're up to know and get.
01:02Different areas had different crews.
01:03It was just like there was a crew in Oak Bay,
01:06there was a crew in Esquimalt, you know,
01:08and there was a crew, you know, in Fernwood.
01:09I don't think fights these days can compare
01:12to some of, like, the battle royals that you stop in.
01:15If anyone clipped a piece,
01:17or I'm there the next day painting it
01:19and punching them in the face.
01:21We had a wall that just went on and on and on and on.
01:26There was a couple hundred meters of really fun walls
01:29with awesome burners.
01:30Together against Graffiti Group and Esquimalt,
01:32they came through and they buffed the entire thing,
01:35and then this beige rolled in.
01:37You know, they've been dealing
01:39with an insane graffiti problem in Victoria.
01:42It's such a rich city
01:43that they're always going to put that money
01:45into, like, making those surface-level problems not appear.
01:48And then now, with this new burst, it's awesome.
01:52It's bomb, is what it is.
01:57To all the kids that want to paint on things,
01:59just go paint on things.
02:00Don't let anybody tell you how to do it properly or not.
02:03If it makes you happy, do it.
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