Following are some photos from the tour.
And here are some things we didn’t know about graffiti, gleaned from Paul of Heavy Artillery:
1 Graffiti artists prefer to be known as “writers.”
2 Street art ≠ graffiti. The latter, using spray paints, don’t make contact with the surface. The former do. So Banksy, and Brighton’s Cassette Lord, are street artists – they use stencils.
3 Graffiti writers are well-organised, and often collaborate with each other – some of the big graffiti sites result from jams, where several writers participate in a project
4 Many writers earn a living from what they do – picking up commissions as a result of their more “informal” work
5 Graffiti writers probably have a significant carbon footprint – many of the jams involve international participants flying in
6 Brighton and Hove Council, having decided that it’s hard to beat the graffiti-istas, now has a good working relationship with the writers – which means that there is now a lot less of the unattractive tagging which the council used to spend a lot of time and money cleaning up
7 The writers we met on the tour, legitimately spraying some hoardings off of The Level, were polite, charming and articulate, and enjoyed having their work analysed and praised (Hello “Gary”).
8 The spray paints smell bad, going on toxic, and can’t be good for the health of the writers
9 Using a spray can to get a straight line and a hard edge needs really good hand-eye co-ordination and firm motor control
10 Though some of the imagery looks violent, the writers insist it’s all a joke. Presumably in a post-modern ironic kind of way. Smurfs with machine guns, anyone?
11 If you want to join in, contact B&H Council. And don’t trespass on other writer’s work!
PS: Did you know that Rolf Harris has done a bit of writing in Brighton? For a tv show. Here it is:
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