Conference explores graffiti’s uses and abuses

By Jeremy Jagodzinski

EDMONTON — Efforts to reduce graffiti through enforcement are working, but increasing the legal space available for graffiti art would be better, participants in a symposium said this week.

The conference, hosted by the Capital City Clean Up group, showcased both local and international speakers Oct. 18 and 19 at the Westin Hotel. It aimed to represent divergent opinions on graffiti and to promote co-operative programs to get rid of it.

“It’s a collective effort of the entire community that understands that vandalism, no matter what it is, is unacceptable and needs to be dealt with,” said Mayor Stephen Mandel. “It’s great to have this conference here to discuss and talk about how we can decrease and hopefully eliminate the desire of people to debase buildings in our city.”

Last year, a graffiti audit commissioned by the city recorded 1,978 acts of graffiti in Edmonton. In west Edmonton, four neighbourhoods were identified among the city’s 20 named areas most affected by graffiti: Glenwood, West Jasper Place, Canora and Westmount, which is also among the seven most problematic areas branded by the audit.

Long-standing efforts to eliminate graffiti continue in other west Edmonton neighbourhoods, said Ryan Pleckitis, the acting director of complaints and investigations with the community standards branch and the Edmonton Police Service.

“We do have dedicated resources that work specifically in the Stony Plain Road area and we do identify graffiti violations on a regular basis,” said Pleckitis. “Over the last couple of years, we’ve applied a lot of resources in those communities specifically to address graffiti, but also unsightly properties and derelict houses in an effort to really clean up the community. And so far we’ve had a lot of success.”

Britannia-Youngstown and the 124^th Street area were other west Edmonton communities identified that were also in need of attention.

Community volunteers armed with solvents, cleaners and paint, will continue to remove graffiti in the target neighbourhoods of west Edmonton and in other vandalized areas throughout the city. In co-operation with the EPS, the graffiti management wing of the CCCU runs a graffiti cleanup program for property owners and community members that begins in the springtime.

An Edmonton youth group active in the city’s graffiti subculture was also part of the symposium.

High Risk Youth Uncensored: An Educational Exchange was scheduled to present a short play to convey the message that graffiti is a product of necessity and artistic expression, not destruction of property or injury to property owners.

“All we have is this dinky little Free Wall over by Stadium Station and most people won’t tag it because there’s tags over tags over tags and most people don’t like tagging over other peoples stuff and there’s nowhere else where it’s legal to paint,” said Nikki, who will act the lead role of the accused tagger in the play.

“It’s an actual art form, not just vandalism. People making crappy stuff everywhere pisses everyone off. Actual art is actual art to be appreciated.”

Due to the efforts of the iHuman youth society, the city designated the outside wall of an LRT tunnel just off of the west side of 95 Street to be used for the Free Wall Project, where legal graffiti art can be displayed.

“This is given by the city and this is given by their desires and wants to give space out so they can take away or try and diffuse art being done in other spaces,” said Wallis Kendal, co-founder of iHuman. “It can only work if spaces are properly allotted.”

The iHuman Youth Society, located at 10231 95 St., will continue to act as an advocate for graffiti artists in Edmonton and will continue to search for new opportunities to showcase artwork in public exhibits created out of its Art and Design Program as well as from other programs.