Graffiti in Scotland: Inspiring Change

“Is graffiti art?” – an age-old debate that would take hours to even properly address. However over the last decade, graffiti art (or street art) seems to have been received more positively by both galleries and the general public. In the UK, Tate Modern hopped on the graffiti train last year by staging a Street Art show in which six internationally acclaimed artists like Blu, JR and Sixeart were commissioned to write on the building’s famous river façade.

The Scottish scene isn’t lacking flourishing talents or innovative projects either: Kelburn Castle’s façade was (in)famously decorated in 2007 by Nina, Nunca and Os Gêmeos, and last October the collective Agents of Change (including Scottish sensation Derm) took over the ghost town Polphaill to positive public response. This summer, Rough Cut Nation at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery was praised by critics and enthused visitors of all ages and social backgrounds.

With this in mind, one would have expected a less stereotypical response to the Scottish Arts Council’s recent announcement they were putting £300,000 towards the Inspiring Change project to offer music, drama and the visual arts to Scottish inmates. Aiming at improving their literacy skills, encouraging them to gain qualification and raising their self-esteem, the project also proposes introducing graffiti workshops into prisons such as HMYOI Polmont. Various reporters feasted on Labour's Duncan McNeil’s scream of “state-sponsored vandalism”, while some even compared the workshops to “teaching calligraphy to would-be-forgers”.

It is not the first time Polmont has taken on programmes to help young offenders. A few years ago and despite an initial icy reception, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award’s New Start project successfully showed helping young people boost their self confidence and supporting them in learning new skills, were key steps to reducing (re-)offending and the use of drugs and alcohol. Inspiring Change’s ultimate touring exhibition of all the work produced by the participants is similarly working towards providing them with a sense of achievement.

I talked to Fraser Gray – one of the artists involved in Rough Cut Nation (and our June ’08 Showcase, you faithful Skinny reader) who teaches graffiti workshops at Dundee’s Factory Skatepark, and working for Fife Council as part of the Youth Achievement Awards for young people who have left school. According to Gray it is a fantastic way to engage with them creatively; the workshops are always fully booked and the participants enthused. “The young people involved can often be very difficult to engage with, and it helps to work on their level with their interests. A lot of the young people that sign up confess themselves to hating drawing, painting and art in general. Simply by swapping the brush for a can of spray paint we can teach people all the same thought processes of more traditional painting (colour, composition, scale, etc.). This is not vandalism that is being taught. It’s a grounding in the processes and techniques required to paint in spray paint.” Even the councils often commission artists to create graffiti murals for community centres, which almost always involve youth participations.

And with the eminence of the Scottish graffiti scene, the budding artists have many recognized and successful role models to look up to (Elph, Smug, Lyken or Soulrelics amongst many others) who distinguish themselves from the usual ‘graffiti artist stereotype’.  Crucially, the sites they choose aren't those of the stereotypical vandal. They're not painting on someone's house, or defacing some ancient monument. It's places that are already in disrepair, abandoned, almost literally falling down.

Ironically, the programme’s scandal is, in part, key to its success. As Gray points out, “if [street art] became a more socially acceptable art form (which it increasingly is) then the young people probably wouldn’t sign up to these workshops in the numbers they do now, and would have even fewer opportunities for creative output.” Should we wish graffiti art a wider recognition then? Another question to add to the debate list.