Vivid
A street art platform launched during the 2016 NZ Fringe Festival
Currently New Zealand is spending millions of dollars annually painting out graffiti. Much of the policy around this work stems from the concept of broken windows theory and there’s no real evidence that proves this is an effective solution.
Everybody Cool Lives Here believes that this approach continues to silence marginalised voices, painting them out one at a time. It makes no attempt at looking at bigger problems connected to individuals who continue to tag. Our solution is positive reinforcement through arts-based practices.
We really wanted to celebrate the amazing work Wellington Boys & Girls Institute have been doing over the years with their Can Control programme. Can Control aimed to kerb taggers from graffiti and positively reinforce more pro-social outputs with the young people creating mural based works alongside local street art mentors.
As part of Vivid we were keen to link these young people, with a larger community of like-minded artists. Over the week 15-21st February 2016 we managed to link a cohort of artists to three walls in Wellington, and in the process strengthened the community with more positive role-models.