Page 2266 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 15 September 1992
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gangs that are now decorating railway stations, schools and even some private buildings. The article says that the work has impressed members of the public, and, as a result, some young people have ended up with legitimate and fulfilling work. Some of the murals carry messages about safe sex and the need to combat racism.
How do we help young people in our society to express themselves in their chosen way? The problem is more than simply one of funding community arts projects. To quote a recent Arts Council paper, "Youth Cultures - Arts Policies":
The shared experiences derived from being from the same age cohort (or group) may be trivial compared to the contrasting social experiences and possibilities ...
The study uses the example of a black adolescent female in Redfern compared to a white male adolescent in Vaucluse. While we pride ourselves on being more egalitarian than other capital cities, there would be little difficulty in finding a similar yawning gulf between the experiences of young people from the Canberra, Queanbeyan and southern tablelands districts. What is good for one cohort does not necessarily address the needs of another.
That graffiti does exist in our city is not denied; but I feel that at present we are not encouraging its artistic elements, nor are we observing its social history function closely enough. I was given some disturbing information while preparing this matter of public importance debate for the Assembly: The graffiti on university campuses is becoming more racist in tone. This has not come from academic sources; it has come from the people responsible for removing the graffiti. What can we do with this information? What we need to do is acknowledge the message that the graffiti is giving us and react and respond appropriately.
The Australian National University has a great method of keeping up with trends in graffiti. It repaints walls every now and then and lets students and others have their say. In those areas where the Australian National University feels that graffiti is not wanted, anti-graffiti paint is used. At student election times, a committee of students and staff sit down and discuss the areas where posters, which are another form of mass culture art work, and graffiti will be acceptable. This model, I think, could be extrapolated to other situations.
We need to channel the skills and talents of young people - not necessarily into areas of already acceptable art, but into other areas in which they are interested. By challenging their right to find and use their own methods of expression we create problems for ourselves from the point of view of the large costs associated with cleaning up graffiti, the increased use of tagging to get the message across, and confrontations between police, who have to enforce current laws, and graffiti artists. In an age where we are attempting to find different approaches to solving the problems of youth, allowing an avenue of expression such as legitimate graffiti art on legal walls would give us more insight into their attitudes, concerns and frustrations. What we can give young people is the chance to use their art form in a way that fulfils their needs and allows us as adults a view into their world from a different perspective.
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