Graffiti, attractive as some of it may be, it is vandalism. It is vandalism to write on people’s property without their permission. However a lot of the graffiti on our streets is very nice to look at. Walking through the laneways of the city, or along the side of a railway line can be like walking through an art gallery. There are different types of graffiti, such as ‘tagging’, which is where someone just writes their initials or logo on a window, or wall. This is what most people think about when they think of graffiti.
It is ugly, it has no point, and it ruins the appearance of our cities. The ‘stencil’ graffiti, and graffiti art are the kinds of graffiti we ought to be encouraging in our towns and cities. It is a great form of decoration to help liven up and create interest in what would be boring brick walls and it gives areas a happier feel to them. This form of graffiti is also a way for people to express themselves and show the world about issues they think are being ignored and need to have attention brought to them.
But of course, it would be a disaster if people walking on the streets, freely made their mark on what ever they wanted. This is why we need dedicated ‘graffiti zones’. We need zones where graffiti is tolerated so people can express themselves freely without breaking the law. For many people, graffiti is also a way to express themselves, and vent anger, if people aren’t allowed to vent this anger it will build up inside them, and be taken out in other ways, most possibly violence.
And if there’s one thing we don’t need in the streets, it’s more violence. Many people believe that by setting up allocated zones for graffiti would increase the number of tags throughout the city. But this is not so, because their work would be better seen in a graffiti zone and not on highway overpasses and the reason for the works is for it to be seen. Allocated graffiti zones are obviously a great idea to reduce the number of artworks spread across the city, and it would also decrease the amount of money the government spends on cleaning it up.
When travelling on the train to and through Melbourne the artwork on walls, tunnels and bridges is the only thing that keeps people awake on the trip. Graffiti art is a colourful exciting and interesting way to liven up what would otherwise be a boring, depressing and grey trip. Tagging is graffiti art or vandalism and definitely not art but the true graffiti art is a show of great talent and skill and creates an interest in the town walls and issues that would normally go unnoticed.
