Your say / Bristol
‘Making marks on walls is ingrained in the very fabric of what it means to be human’
Vandals and Visionaries on BBC One on Friday, July 28 investigates the turbulent past of Bristol’s graffiti culture. Here is artist Felix Braun sticking up for street art. Read former British Transport Police superintendent Tony Thompson’s opposing view here.
The local authority has long enjoyed an uneasy relationship with the city’s most celebrated cultural export. Go to the Visit England website’s section on Bristol and you will find the opening sentence reads:
“Visit Bristol, Banksy’s town and experience a wide range of attractions for all the family.”
is needed now More than ever
Attractions that include street art tours that draw visitors in their thousands; Europe’s largest annual street art and graffiti festival; countless local businesses with their signage and/or décor provided by street artists. Prints, books, t-shirts, calendars, cards: street art is big business for Bristol, make no mistake. It is intrinsic to the city’s identity and appeal.
And yet each year Bristol City Council cooperates with the local constabulary and courts in handing out custodial sentences for graffiti. Sentences that can last upwards of 12-months; in some cases even longer. Elsewhere in the UK, graffiti writer Vamp was sentenced to three-and-a-half years for graffiti in 2013.
But wait: haven’t human beings been making marks on walls since long before the advent of such relatively modern inventions as buildings, trains and cities; or indeed concepts such as ‘vandalism’ or for that matter the ‘rule of law’? The urge, the need to make one’s mark is, I would argue, ingrained in the very fabric of what it means to be human. It was there at the birth of culture and has been one of its key signifiers ever since.
All of which, of course, is old news. These days we live in highly organised, interconnected groupings – or societies – where the behaviour of the many is presided over by the few. We live in a society where the definitions of concepts such as ‘public space’ and ‘public ownership’ are not decided by the very people to whom they refer: that is, you, the public.
In other words, if I choose to make a mark on a public wall in a style that is not deemed appropriate or pleasing to the eye by the powers-that-be, then this act is punishable by law; and yet, if a large ugly mark is made by an advertising hoarding in a public space, no matter how offensive it might be to a great many members of the public, we have no recourse at our disposal. Except, perhaps, to subvert its message with a can of spray paint under cover of night.
Street artist Felix Braun is also the author of the seminal book on Bristol graffiti, Children of the Can
Read more: Preview: Vandals and Visionaries
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