As well as being one of the five elements of the hip hop culture, graffiti is also a great community builder. This is clear in neighbourhoods where people haven’t felt like they can express themselves and be heard.
You can’t ignore a wall that has been touched by a tagger or true artist. By extension, this means you can’t ignore the communities of Mamre or Pella. As part of Once Upon A Time, a project by Splitpiece and sponsored by adidas and supported by Red Bull, graffiti artists and activists Falko and Rasty collaborated from April 24 until the beginning of this month.
The result is 40 murals – 20 in Pella and 20 in Mamre – of original street art which are authentically South African. Falko, who is based in Cape Town, had much success with his previous Splitpiece project, which was called Darling Made Me Do It.
As the name suggests, the project of murals took place in Darling. This time around, Joburg artist and Gray Scale graffiti shop owner Rasty was roped in to share in telling the stories of landscape, culture and, of course, the people who live in that community, through art.
It hasn’t been a one-sided affair where the artists are talking at the people instead of to them, though.
The Pella and Mamre dwellers have been encouraged to take part in the art.
“Before anything else,” Falko said, “I want to make it truly South African by implementing the idea in cities and towns that will in the end be testament to our diverse country.
“I would like to spread this concept throughout the world. By constantly developing and creating new pieces it will be possible to communicate our completed artworks to the rest of the world.”
An exhibition that displays all 40 of the murals on paper will be held soon.
Speaking of exhibitions, last night the In Retrospect Visual Arts Catalogue exhibition was launched at Artscape.
Four years ago, the Artscape Resource Centre invited visual artists from all walks of life to submit work that would be included in this exhibition. The work of highly respected graffiti artist Mak1One is one of the highlights of the exhibition while artists including Noer Abrahams, Michael Chitter, Gary Frier, Lavonne Bosman, Rizqah Majiet, Abduragman Ismail, Isaac Mukonde and Andria Manuel also have awesome work up.
The diversity of the African voices offered in the exhibition, which was curated by Igshaan Adams, comes just in time to celebrate Africa Day, which is on May 25 each year.
* The Once Upon A Time murals can be seen in and around Mamre and Pella and the In Retrospect Visual Arts Catalogue exhibition is on at the Artscape Theatre.