COMMUNITY SPACE, WHO DOES IT BELONG TO?
THE LONG WALL
WAKEFIELD PLACE, BRIGHTON, UK
Only a few weeks after painting my section of the Long Wall, a graffitist came and started to paint over the mural, but as shown below the community made it very clear what they really wanted to see on their walls. Immediately after the mural was defaced, Sandy Moon the organiser of the Long Wall and some volunteers spent 5 hours scrubbing it all off by hand. This is the reason we have anti graffiti paint so that if something like this happens it is possible to remove the graffiti and save the mural underneath. Sandy then created a go-fund me to raise money for the mural to be protected and repainted. Scroll down to see the link to donate where even the smallest donation would be appreciated.
CREDITS
The wall was painted by Sandy Moon, Etienne de Compt, Angela, Req, Mock Mowgli, Guy Favela, IAMSOS, Glimmertwin, Fek, Sinna One and Youth Group. The Round Hill Community association raised the funds to pay for the artists to paint this mural on a site where there is a lot of tagging.
It was heart warming to see Sandy the organiser & the local residents, come out in force to remove the throw-ups. Faith in humanity restored! Photo by Sandy Moon.
RAISING FUNDS
Sandy has now started a go-fund me page to purchase more anti graffiti paint and to cover paint costs and time that myself and my assistant Zara needs to come and repair the wall. Despite it being estimated as a half a day to repair, this actually represents a days loss of earnings for the artists because we can’t go anywhere else in that day due to travel etc. The funds needed were £400 for the anti graffiti coating and it has already gone over £600 which is heartening since any extra will help Zara & myself not lose out as mentioned, and to cover our costs.
we would love to raise some more because its not our fault that this happened and we painted this already at a heavily discounted rate.
Please consider donating if you are able…THANK YOU IN ADVANCE!
“A section of artwork on the wall by artist Sarah Gillings was tagged with huge ‘throw ups’ on Sunday by 2 men who lied to concerned passers by that they had permission to spray over this beautiful part of the wall. Thankfully a local person chased them off but they will be back. The anti tagging coating worked well to protect Sarah Gillings incredible work but due to the size of the tags it still took a dedicated community crew who scrubbed for 5 hours to clean it off. We are fundraising to provide more antigraff coating to protect it further and the other artworks on the wall x
Please help x”
CIVIC PRIDE & COMMUNITY ACTION
A local resident bravely confronts the graffiti artist. It is really amazing to see people sticking up for themselves & the community and not being intimidated by these kinds of people. Below is an article from Brighton & Hove News.
“Two grown men were putting their big tags up on it. They lied and said they were making it pretty and they had permission. They got chased off and word went out to the community and came and helped. People came out and we spent eight hours on Sunday scrubbing it all off.”
- ARTIST SANDY MOON, WHO HELPED ORGANISE THE MURAL
“What are you doing” -
“Go away”
“What are you doing the community campaigned for this for ages and you’ve just ruined artwork!”
…
“Do you know how long we’ve campaigned for that mural here? Do you understand? This has just be done and you’ve just wrecked it with your s***ty tagging. It’s not acceptable mate. We know who you are, you won’t be back here alright?!”
MY RESPONSE
As the first artist to kick off The Long Wall, I felt that I really wanted to create something with the wow factor in my signature style. Both Zara my assistant and I worked really hard over this. It was really disheartening to see the mural defaced so quickly and I did wonder if my work was targeted for a particular reason or not.
If anything I suppose the background of my mural was really beautiful and the other two male artists who decided to create something over it, were borrowing my beautifully blurry style background.
What ever statement they wanted to make, it was upsetting for the whole community to see it destroyed. Yes, we know the nature of street art is that it layers over time, but in this instance the community came together to fund seeing some nature in an urban setting.
So in this case it’s just disrespectful to ALL the artists involved to just make their mark in this way. It disrespects the whole community because it’s very clear that it’s not just a random piece of art, it’s a coordinated community project. The point of this mural, wasn’t to say that tagging and typography based art doesn’t have a place, simply that the local residents wanted to see nature instead of writing everywhere.
The fact that there is a fundraiser and how quickly the community came out to repair the wall…was truly heartening to see!
THE WALL PRE - PROJECT
(A magnet for taggers!)
