Fighting bad art with good | The Examiner | December 12, 2023 - video Dailymotion

Artist Kira Simmonds is one of the many emerging artists recruited to fight the growing graffiti problem with art. Video Rod Thompson

Transcript

00:00 So, coming out here, kind of seeing all of the wildlife, driving around the sanctuary

00:11 with local historians, really inspired a lot of the imagery in the project and kind of

00:17 seeing something vibrant and colourful to liven up the space.

00:22 I managed to turn this outside part around in about two days.

00:27 This is definitely the biggest project I've done so far, especially on my own.

00:32 As a young artist, my opportunities have mostly been group based, so this is just me on my

00:37 own.

00:38 I think this is the start of a long line of projects based around community development,

00:44 giving people a sense of ownership over space and incorporating imagery into the public

00:50 that makes people feel better about where they live.

00:53 So this is one of the council initiatives when the community have asked for some physical

00:58 action when it comes to the approach to graffiti and in our municipality we obviously see a

01:03 little bit of the tagging, so we thought what a great proactive way to get in front of and

01:07 to incorporate those who want to express themselves creatively by offering opportunities like

01:12 what we see here in Kings Meadows with the toilet block.

01:15 It's a beautiful space where you walk just down the rivulet there, so the whole design

01:19 is themed around what you would expect to see around the floor and fauna here in the

01:24 Kings Meadows vicinity.

01:26 This is probably just one of a few instalments that we'll see as we go forward around this

01:31 approach to that proactive anti-graffiti approach from the council, so if there's graffiti that

01:38 the community see, they can actually bring that to us as well, send it through as a customer

01:41 service request.

01:42 But instead of just going through, cleansing and painting over, this is the sort of initiative

01:46 that we want to give young up and coming artists and those who want to express themselves creatively

01:50 the opportunity to embrace and to add natural value as well as artistic value to our spaces.

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