Thoughtful reflections on the ever evolving street art, murals and graffiti scene in Christchurch, New Zealand
Author: Reuben Woods
Reuben is an art historian, writer and curator. His PhD thesis explored graffiti and street art within post-earthquake Christchurch. He also serves as creative director and lead tour guide for Watch This Space.
After the success and popularity of Jacob Yikes’ exhibition Bad Company, Fiksate are set to launch their next show, with the return of Face Value. Initially held at Fiksate’s previous location in New Brighton in late 2017, Face Value was an exploration of portraiture through urban art, design and illustration.
The 2019 incarnation of Face Value continues this theme, but with a more specific focus on the presence of faces, figures and characters in the work of graffiti, street and urban contemporary artists. This takes the identity-centric and infographic qualities of urban art (think of the centrality of the name in graffiti, and the instant recognition sought by post-graffiti artists) as a starting point, to consider the varying ways artists utilise portraiture, self-portraiture, characters, figures and faces, at times within their work. This spans somewhat traditional approaches to portraiture, to repeated, iconic emblems that are as much about their material or performative creation as their visual appearance, akin to a tag as much as a representational image.
The stacked line-up provides an array of artists whose work engages with this realm and highlights a variety of stylistic, material and conceptual approaches, from internationally renowned Anthony Lister’s frenetically composed images that shift between high and low cultural references, to Elliot O’Donnell (you may know him as AskewOne, either way he is undeniably one of New Zealand’s most successful and thoughtful urban artists) and his portraits that consider cultural identity. There are also works by Australian artists Handbrake (Perth), Tom Gerrard (Melbourne), and Mulga (Sydney), who all bring a playful, graphic quality to their character-based work, and UK and US artists KoeOne and Voxx Romana respectively, the former elegantly combining greyscale figuration with bold typography, and the latter, subversive cultural references with a stencil precision. Auckland artists Erika Pearce and Component bring further diversity though their distinct approaches to cultural identity, while local artists, both emerging and established, ensure a vital representation of what is happening right here. Local artists include Jacob Yikes, Ikarus, Joel Hart, Porta, Dove, Tom Kerr and Meep, each representing distinct personal perspectives; from bold self-portraits, to recurring motifs and characters developed over years of extended practice.
Face Value opens on Friday, January 18th, 5:00pm – 9:30pm at Fiksate Studio & Gallery, 165 Gloucester Street.
Check out Fiksate’s social media for more information…
This Saturday Kophie Hulsbosch’s Future Apparel joins forces with Creep Threadz for a pop-up shop to launch respective new collections. Featuring the good feels of a sustainable approach to clothing and fashion, the Future X Creep Threadz pop-up will present a range of one-of-a-kind pieces you won’t find anywhere else.
Following pop-up shops at both Embassy and the Art Box, Kophie declares that she wants “to end the year with a bang” and present the development and refinement of Future‘s approach and aesthetic, alongside a selection of friends and creative forces.
Based on graffiti culture, the new Future collection is a reflection of hip hop’s central influence on Kophie’s life. Clothing also presents an alternative vessel for her own graffiti writing, one that bypasses the beef she has encountered recently on the streets, and in fact embraces community “by collaborating with local and international graffers that haven’t necessarily been in a gallery space before.” Importantly, Future‘s focus on highlighting an alternative to ‘fast fashion’ and more sustainable options that might combat our impact on the planet, is still evident, both in the use of sustainable clothing, but also in declarative illustrations such as: “The Future is Bleak”.
“Sifting through second hand shops, and even dumpsters, to find clothes that are in good enough quality and not warehouse crap” (and fit the street wear and hip hop aesthetic) and then customizing each item with a fitting alteration is a lengthy process, and imbues the pieces with a unique value. Alongside clothing, the Future collection will also include re-purposed broken skateboard decks (a large contributor to landfill and maple deforestation Kophie points out), and due to her awareness of the impact of spray paint, Kophie plans to recycle aerosol caps and cans.
Creep Threadz is a new brand from Lyttelton artist McChesney-Kelly Adams, packed with dark imagery which, like Future‘s sustainable approach, is printed on second-hand items. Creep Threadz also has a socially-minded approach, with a portion of proceeds being donated to a mental health foundation.
The pop-up shop will see the room divided in two, with Future‘s graffiti inspired items on one side, Creep Threadz‘s darker, quirky collection on the other.
Three other local clothing brands will also be represented: I Heart Thrifting, who re-sell second hand vintage; oscottworld, a young fashion designer from ARA, and artists residence, two creative brothers with a passion for the finest street wear.
Fitting for both the socially aware approach and the venue of the launch, such an undertaking never happens without a lot of support and Kophie is quick to shout out to “Bruce, my ARA tutor who kindly made my rings for me because I didn’t have access to a wood workshop, Callum for emotional support, Cassels and Sons for supplying some beer and Jimi for hooking up the sponsorship, and my Mum for sanding and polishing all my skate rings!”
So for “sick graffiti on the walls and for sale, local & sustainable streetwear, quirky artworks and free beers”, head along to The XCHC on Saturday for this exciting pop-up…
Future X Creep Threadz Pop-Up Shop/Launch
Saturday, December 8th, 6:30pm (Runs until December 13th)
With Christmas fast approaching, and the hectic lifestyle that comes with it, A Tribe Called Haz has decided to get a jump on it and do Hanukkah instead (Hanukkah falls between the 2nd and 10th of December this year), and that means a one night only, pop-up show at Embassy on Colombo Street in Sydenham on Friday, December 7th. Haz insists the timing is perfect, as any later and he would be “killing off some brain cells in Wanaka” post-Christmas, which, amongst other obvious respects, ruled out a Kwanzaa themed event.
Haz Does Hanukkah is a quick turnaround from his recent one-night show, A Tribe Called Exhibition, also held at Embassy, which Haz suggests reflects his constant work rate, increased productivity and conscious use of time. The show will feature a number of smaller works, indicative of this constant output. The same acerbic, acidic and quirky qualities remain, a constant reminder of Haz’s unique approach to image making, however, the show will also include more patterns and textures than previous work, as well as works influenced by tattoo flash and some digital works.
Alongside original paintings, there will be prints and stickers available (the stickers bigger than the last, inadvertently cute, batch!). This variety, and the melting pot of images, means you should be able to get all your Christmas presents in one go!
As he continues to undertake more and more events, commissions and opportunities, Haz is growing in confidence in getting his work out there, continuing to develop his identity and aesthetic through such support. Last Sunday Haz completed a live colab painting with Fiksate’s Jen at a Notion Touring event at Smash Palace, further signs of the flourishing opportunities for emerging and more established artists in Christchurch.
Haz Does Hanukkah is supported by the good ship Embassy and by Ghost Brewing, who are supplying the all-important beers.
It is probably fair to say that Christchurch stencil artist Porta never expected to have an exhibition at a place like the Centre of Contemporary Art. So when he was approached by Hannah Watkinson of The Corner Store to show his work in the Lux Gallery space, he admits he was surprised. But perhaps he should not have been, after all he has had work featured in a growing number of festivals, shows and projects, from Spectrum to First Thursdays and, of course, the CAP’D exhibitions he started several years ago.
Porta admits that as is his normal approach, he didn’t really have a plan at first, and it has changed “a bunch of times” as he has got closer to show time, with ideas “falling by the wayside due to being too busy”, left for later down the track. The body of work that has come to form Applesauce is stencilled on a variety of materials, a signature the artist has developed over the years. Porta admits the ideas he works with “come from all over the place and are usually a playful take on something pretty run of the mill”, a reflection of the show’s intriguing title. Porta recounts that after a drawn-out argument, he and his verbal adversary realised that their disagreement had in fact, started with applesauce. That realisation allowed a pause, reflection, and then laughter. Much like that argument, the title Applesauce notes how the show is all about “making something from almost nothing”.
That idea extends to both the materials on which Porta’s images are made, which he collects from various sources, keeping an eye out for second hand stores, wrecking yards, garage sales and other favourite spots, and the re-contextualised, often lowbrow, images drawn from vintage movies, advertising and photography, all of which the artist admits are “fun to work with”. Importantly, that sense of fun extends throughout Porta’s work, and is a feature of Applesauce, packed with playful surprises and juxtapositions.
In his ever-humble manner, Porta is quick to thank those who have helped him put together Applesauce, including Hannah from The Corner Store, CoCA, the Fiksate crew, and vitally, Ghost Brewing for supplying the beer, and all things going well, Smokey T’s for ribs. When I ask him to explain in one sentence why everyone should get along to Applesauce on Friday, he suggests: “Because if you go somewhere else the possibility of getting free ribs will be slim as!” Ribs fan or not, get along to the Lux Gallery on Friday and support one of the city’s finest stencil artists…
Applesauce opens at 5:30pm, Friday the 16th November at the Lux Gallery at CoCA…
In Part One of our interview with Auckland’s Berst, we discussed his approach to teaching graffiti, and in Part Two that theme continues, along with a deep dive into the way graffiti has developed over time and across the globe, including New Zealand, his advocacy for graffiti, the challenges the culture faces, gentrification and the commodity of culture, and the importance of ideas…
Berst, Auckland, 2018
In terms of Aotearoa, how distinct can we be when we are talking about the history of graffiti? Do you see distinct scenes in specific cities more so than an overall feeling, or is New Zealand small enough that it can be condensed down to an overarching scene?
Are you talking about stylistic lineage?
Yeah, but also in terms of a more social history of the culture. Like, do you think different scenes have had both distinct stylistic trends, and specific social developments? Or is the scene small enough to mean that that overlap occurs around the country, both stylistically and socially? And I’m asking this because in Christchurch, this city has that position of being younger and smaller than particularly Auckland’s graffiti culture, so when you travel and talk to people, do you see a distinction between the places that you go?
Well, I think first and foremost, in terms of a stylistic lineage, it usually goes in five-year cycles. Like every five years, there is a new crew that emerges that fuels something, that’s kind of what I’ve noticed…
A five-year cycle?
There’s a five-year cycle where crews form, and they make some sort of impact and they do something, and they are active…
Do you think that is related to a time span of maturity for a writer, age-wise? Or just a natural period of growth, influence, assimilation and repeat?
Yeah, definitely, definitely, you know most of the writers I hang out with now, they are anywhere between eighteen and thirty-five, mostly, so that’s the kind of age bracket of people who are writing. So, there are now kids that are beginning at eighteen and I’m totally disconnected from them. l don’t know what they are up to. But anyway, with stylistic lineage, I feel like we look back fifteen years, there used to be styles passed on because of who people painted with and associated with and were influenced by. One thing we talked about in the past is regional styles, and I think, particularly in Wellington, that’s probably the best case-study. A couple of crews down there, they were really influenced by hip hop, and they proactively worked together to have an integrated look and way of doing things, so their pieces were really traditional, classic New York looking stuff, whereas in Auckland we had quite a few writers where international writers came over and that kind of shaped their styles…
Like the German influence?
Yeah, that shaped the scene, definitely. I’m not too sure about the Christchurch scene and other cities, but I definitely know that for me, at that very early period of time, it was kind of just Auckland and Wellington, they were the two main places. When the internet came and remixed everything and you know it became so easy for one person to look overseas and say: ‘O.K., what’s happening in Brazil? I’m going to take a little bit of that aesthetic…’ So, definitely, styles are changing quite fast and it’s become a bit more hybridised for everybody, I don’t think you can trace the history as easily…
Berst, Auckland, 2018
There’s an interesting danger there as well in some sense, right?
In terms of appropriation?
In terms of appropriation, obviously in regard to cultural sensitivity, but also when using something as a building block for your own practice or style, without any real understanding, it can become problematic in your development conceptually…
That is what happens when it’s an organic kind of art form, whereas with something like Pop Art, which was developed within, or at least formalised inside institutions, when you are in art school, they will say you do Pop Art like this. So, there’s an educational aspect of studying Pop Art in University, but then it could also maybe stifle creativity because you think that you have to make art a certain way, if that’s the aesthetic you are wanting. But with graffiti, each person is different from the next. In general, you would say most people start looking at New York graffiti first as a foundation, because you need letterform and structure, but I think nowadays people aren’t necessarily looking at those guys for inspiration. But you know, an artist said to me in one of my Real Time episodes: ‘New York, that’s the real deal in terms of style.’ Everything that is being painted now is just a replica, an interpretation of that in its various manifestations. That is still the core, that is still what we are trying to do and that’s still our bible, the blueprints of what we’re trying to create. So yeah, its an interesting one, I think partially that’s what I’ve been trying to do with some of the Auckland writers, is influence them. Going back to this idea of religion, its about practice and is also about preaching certain types of principles, and I’m not religious, but, what I’ve realised is most important is actually passing down ideas. So, you know, at the end of last year I actually brought together ten graffiti writers and I had a meeting with them about all sorts of shit, from the law, to style, to painting pieces, getting up. When I get back to Auckland I’m meeting with another ten. What I’m actually doing is developing an army…
Yeah? (Laughs)
I’m meeting another ten, and then next year I might bring together another ten. Then suddenly I have a whole new generation of thirty writers to work with. But most importantly, it’s about leaving behind some ideas, be it around style and how to construct letters, or how to do graffiti, ways of getting up, putting it into this context or making a living from it, you know? It’s mostly because the people that come to those meetings, these younger guys, they do only have that one perception of what graffiti is: ‘I tag’, or ‘I bomb’, ‘I get up and write everywhere’ and that’s their only conception of what it is. I’m just trying to open that a little bit…
Graffiti’s public perception means it largely is unable to rebut to any charges brought against it, it doesn’t often get a platform, but there is also a perception that graffiti writers aren’t necessarily thoughtful…
A perception from the community?
Yeah, that graffiti writers aren’t eloquent enough to express ideas around what they are doing, which isn’t true, I find a lot of young graffiti writers have very crystallised ideas of why they write. Talking to young people, do you find that there is that real sense of understanding, even if it is only that one perception, but there is understanding there of the complexity of graffiti that the wider public often discredits them from having? That maybe they just express them in different ways?
Well, one thing that I say quite often is that there are two things to take away from graffiti: the first is to make the statement that graffiti is not art, as we talked about before, and secondly, that graffiti often leads to other forms of crime…
The Broken Windows theory…
Yeah, the Broken Windows theory, and I’m O.K. with that, because I do partially believe that if there is a bit of graffiti somewhere, someone is likely to paint some more graffiti beside it, because it didn’t get buffed. So yes, I do believe that to a degree, but not fully, as I would also argue that graffiti can also lead to creativity. In many cases where I’ve interviewed artists for my own work, that has been the case, the journey. They haven’t taken a formal art destination route to becoming an artist, they have gone through graffiti and it has led them there. So, it proves that it is possible, right? We see graffiti and street art and all these other forms of public art, urban art, and its place in transforming a city post-whatever, there are many things occurring, not to mention the massive street art festivals, that are changing the perceptions. I definitely think that graffiti has the potential to lead people into a career as an artist, but of course it depends on each person. But, equally at the same time, I believe that there is something that works against that as well, because writers are also painting illegally, you know, balaclava over the face and painting trains, that’s also perpetuating an ideology of what graffiti is and who they are, and what they represent. So, there’s that social connotation towards graffiti and once again it is tough, because it’s an art form that’s contradicting itself in many ways, it is art but I’m going to go break the law here…
Berst and Haser, Tauranga, 2017
Yep, but that comes back to the question of how exclusive art and legality are, whether they are mutually exclusive…
No, of course not, of course not…
That’s the thing, they don’t define each other…
It could be art and still be illegal. But yeah, I think, once again, it comes back down to the context of what that is. My fight, my advocacy for graffiti is not necessarily to make it legal, to make it mainstream, to make people accept it or appreciate or even validate it, because I know that there are things that are working against graffiti that keep it in its pure essence of how it is manifested. In some ways part of me doesn’t want it to be accepted because when it is accepted…
It loses something…
It loses something, right. It’s kind of like in some ways street art is something that is mostly created illegally, when it first began, but equally if you were to teach street art in school, you know, you can teach someone to do an intervention in a space, you can teach them practical things, you can teach what it means working outdoors, the subject matter people use…
But teaching the motivation is a different thing…
Yeah, the context is really important, because that should then shape how people perceive it. It is actually a conversation I had with Ikarus just the other day. He was saying that there was a mural somewhere, Owen Dippie’s Elephants, and recently the Council painted out the little tags and throwies in the background which were by some really prominent graffiti artists, and they were actually part of the wall that Owen Dippie wanted, and Ikarus was saying that he was pissed off about the Council painting them out. But then, when you go into an exhibition room or a gallery and people do throw ups and tags and bubble letters, then suddenly some old man will appreciate it because it’s in that context. The reality is in their minds that it’s the context, the setting. The perception of how they see it is quite different, because in this context I see some money, some value to it. But on the street, it looks like the stuff that is illegal, even though it is legal, and it’s: ‘Oh no, I don’t like that!’
Yeah, we are conditioned to accept things in different contexts…
So, there is that thing where the community doesn’t quite understand it, or value it in art, and I think the space and context is the real big factor in that…
That context becomes important when you are talking about something that doesn’t have to change form to occupy either space, which adds confusion for a public audience, because they are looking at the same thing, right?
In a different place, it will be received differently, absolutely. But equally, I asked Ikarus and Wongi, why does it piss you off? You’ve done a throw up on a legal wall while people still do it illegally, and then you put it in the gallery and they appreciate it, like that’s kind of to be expected, because that’s what they see illegally, so its kind of like there is no point being upset about it…
Berst, From the Ground Up, Sydenham, Christchurch, 2013
You are probably most notably remembered for your presence in Christchurch for Spectrum a few years ago, although you were also here for From the Ground Up and Rise as well. How often do you get down here?
Yeah, this is my fourth time, or maybe third time, coming down here. I haven’t really had the opportunity to travel around New Zealand all that much. Most of my travel has been spent overseas. But, I’m also doing my doctorate, I’m six months away from finishing, so I’m kind of in that peak period where I probably shouldn’t even be running a workshop, and I’m also working full time, so it’s hard to travel…
That must be a hectic schedule!
It’s been a bloody juggle, to work, stay focussed, do projects, balance my relationship, you know, and also do the PhD, so not too much travelling. But again, taking this idea of religion, when the doctorate is over, I plan to do this kind of tour thing, where I am painting and preaching and starting to link up with people, not just from Christchurch, but from all over New Zealand, and just spread some ideas. I still recall, there was this writer I linked up with in Rome, his name was BRUS, dope writer, very good, and he did an interview with a spray paint company who supports him, and they asked him about his best painting experience. He’s a veteran graffiti writer, he’s painted just as long as me, but he said: ‘One time this guy from NZ, Berst, he came over to Rome, that’s probably my most interesting experience because we actually collaborated together, we worked on each other’s pieces and I’ve never worked in this way.’ And that’s actually an idea of working together, not just: ‘You work here, and I’ll work there.’ That’s not a collaboration, that’s just painting together. So that’s one of the practical approaches I take to painting graffiti. People like Askew, we’ve worked together collaboratively to develop ideas, explore certain aesthetics, approaches to breaking traditional ideas of graffiti that were established over fifty years ago. I want to revamp that, to ask why do we have to do it that way? I tried to take that approach with BRUS and he was appreciative of that, and so what I take from that, was not what I created with him, but the fact that he experienced that idea of how to approach something, and I think that’s really important. If I can have that same kind of impact on the future generation of graffiti writers here in New Zealand, that’s a great thing. A lot of people I interview always talk about the people that influence them, and a common theme that emerges is: ‘Oh, the moment this person came to New Zealand, or the moment I linked up with this person, we were doing things in this way now, it’s evolving, instead of doing one piece, we were doing ten, instead of using three colours, we were using twenty colours…’ So again, it’s about ideas…
Yeah, ideas push evolution and development…
Ideas are hard to come by, because there are so many people who do graffiti now that go out to do graffiti that is just graffiti, just the standard thing that you would do if you were doing graffiti, in terms of style and the approach, for me the thinking is about how can we do that differently?
Berst, Christchurch, 2018
The chance to see what people are doing in different instances, that must allow that idea to be reciprocated as well. Not only are you out preaching as you say, but you are also obviously receiving a heap back from all these people…
Totally, I’m not claiming that I know it all or anything. My mind is still a sponge, which is why once again it is all kind of two-fold. For the Real Time episodes, I’m trying to preach and spread the knowledge, and create the resources, but equally I’m learning. When I interview Wongi, I learn something. That’s the motivation, because you actually have to take initiative, to want to learn, to open your eyes, to get a bigger perspective on this whole thing, because most people when they come into graffiti are very tunnel-visioned: ‘Oh I just want to tag, fuck art’, people have those kinds of attitudes. For me, the learning part is really important, which is why I make a lot of these videos, because, it got to a point, where if you go on YouTube now, ninety percent of the videos are just people painting hardcore graffiti, which is cool and it builds the ethos of what graffiti is and it maintains the roots, but you watch this three-minute clip of someone tagging the whole city or somebody painting trains for like an hour, doing really hectic stuff, but you don’t learn anything from it. I don’t get anything from that, you know what I mean? We were talking before about reality shows, and it is almost like you are living your life through someone else, you’re watching someone paint a train, so what? I don’t get anything from it…
That’s a very different experience from painting or being with someone when they are doing it as well, right?
That’s different, yeah, that’s the buzz, right? That’s the adrenaline…
So, what is your take on what’s happening in Christchurch at the moment? What have you seen this weekend, doing the workshop with writers of different ages and experiences, filming Ikarus and Wongi, and exploring the city, what’s your take? Especially now as we’re sitting a long time after the earthquakes created an environment where graffiti, and urban art more broadly as we’ve talked about, has really shifted into a more visible position…
One thing that I’ve heard Wongi and Ikarus say, as locals, is that the perceptions have changed post-quake, that all the dickheads have left, the real conservatives, like the ‘graffiti is tagging, and tagging is vandalism’ people, you know? I think there is less of that, which is great, and I think sometimes it’s like a cause and effect type thing, which happens. It is not a positive thing that there was an earthquake, but it does restart something, a cycle again, and you can ask: What are we going to do? How are we going to rethink things? How can we do things differently? Sometimes things need to do that, and when I think about Auckland, at one point in 2010, the Rugby World Cup eradicated all of the graffiti, it took away all of the history, years and years and years, and that really challenged a lot of writers. A lot of people gave up. A lot of people moved on. A lot of the young kids stopped doing quality things, because they were like: ‘I’m not spending this much to have it painted out in six hours, what’s the point?’ In some ways it regressed, we saw more tagging and bombing and just quicker things. But now there is graffiti again, and it’s staying up and people are trying to make quality things again, so there is a cycle…
Berst, New Brighton, Christchurch, 2018
There’s a cycle and a maturation process that runs through, like you were saying earlier…
Totally, so while I was upset that people didn’t invest in doing quality stuff, that’s just what happens. So, I think of it as the same thing happening here in Christchurch, except you guys had an earthquake. After that everything just got graffed the hell up, which personally I think is quite cool, because it’s just such a pure thing for people to take space and interact with space in its various ways. I think the beautiful thing as well is graffiti as kind of guardians of the streets. You see people painting murals, people from all sorts of artistic backgrounds, coming like a flock of birds to the space because there are opportunities and potential for things. But at the same time, kind of like we talked about, we need to be careful as artists, to make sure that we know what we are fighting for and what we value when we are making art and not losing the ethos of what we want the context of our art to be, as opposed to just wanting our art out there. We are talking about this idea of curation and a panel of council people responsible for public art that have no art background necessarily, or understanding of it, that are making decisions, like, I want a portrait, I want a landscape… So, we just have to be careful about becoming too conservative, because that is the position councils will take, they are not going to do anything offensive or that’s going to get attention. They just want something nice and pretty that’s going to fit in and not piss anybody off. There’s that part that’s also a positive, but you have to be aware of that. I think equally, when art gets involved, let’s say a mural or something, this idea of gentrification arises as well, so it could also have negative consequences. Like a real shitty derelict suburb, nobody wants to live there and suddenly you put up lots of art and then a cool café, and then suddenly an apartment block and then it’s a hip place…
And then the family who has been living there for generations can’t afford to live there…
Exactly, and then they might even get rid of the art, because it’s now a really expensive area…
That’s actually something that I’ve thought about as well…
It becomes about real estate and that previous graffiti wall, we don’t want that anymore, that’s not going to suit the area now…
In some ways, I wonder if that discussion of art gentrifying areas is actually misplaced, it is still developers and the like, they are still the agents of gentrification, right? Can you actually blame the art for the gentrification?
But the real estate agents are exploiting that art, right? Because they are aware of the cultural value it has, the human capital it has associated with it…
The cultural capital…
That’s what art is, it may not have economic, monetary value, at least at the street level, but it’s culture, it is a manifestation of culture and what it represents…
Berst, Tauranga, 2017
I guess that comes back to the important idea of graffiti maintaining that outsider status…
That’s what I’m talking about…
It’s still a form of culture, but because it can maintain an antipathy to mainstream, it has the ability to combat that process of capitalisation as well…
I am aware that I’m deeply rooted in graffiti and what makes it pure, but I’m also willing to step out of that frame of mind into these new spaces because I want to push the boundaries and I want to open the door while I’m still grounded here. I want to be the tester that goes into the water. If I fail at doing something, if it doesn’t work, at least I can report back to the graffiti community and say I’ve tried this, it didn’t work, or maybe it did, or maybe try it this way. But I think maintaining the purity of it is very important, and if you have it any other way it just falls into the dominant ideology of art and for me that’s what I’m thinking, how is graffiti an outsider thing? Why is it different from other fine arts? What can we do to keep it different? Why does it have to be the same? Like, if everybody did it and accepted it, would it even be cool to still do what we do?
There’s got to be that distinction…
Would it even be cool if painting freight trains were legal? I don’t know…
That’s kind of the beauty of graffiti, that question, that balancing act will continue to play out as it evolves, as new generations enter the culture and redefine it. Thanks so much for sitting down with me, it has been a blast! Any shout outs?
Shout outs to Ikarus, Wongi and Emma, my boy Alpha, for linking up with me over the weekend here in Christchurch, I really appreciate that, and shout out to GBAK and TMD, my two crews back up in Auckland!
Without descending into exaggeration, Auckland artist Berst is perhaps the most significant figure in contemporary New Zealand graffiti. A member of two leading crews, TMD and GBAK, not only is he a formidable artist with a deep understanding of the visual potential of graffiti, Berst is also an eloquent, thoughtful and insightful voice when it comes to the underlying issues resonating in the culture, a complete advocate for the most enduring, widespread and misunderstood art movement of our time. It should not be a surprise, after all, Berst is nearing completion of his PhD in Education, an influence that allows him to delve into graffiti from a variety of vantage points, inflecting his observations with unique frameworks, seeking answers to questions about graffiti’s past, present and future. This background makes him a perfect person to pass on knowledge, something local heroes Ikarus and Wongi were quick to recognise in bringing Berst to Christchurch for a one-day graffiti workshop at the Youth Space at One Central on Manchester Street in early October. Upon hearing about his trip down south, I jumped at the chance to sit down and listen to him talk. It was quickly apparent that Berst’s passion and knowledge is both impressive and infectious, and what started as a quick chat in a brief break in his hectic schedule became an hour-long secular sermon…
Berst, Auckland, 2018
So Berst, you have spent this weekend in town, what have been doing in Christchurch?
I was invited by GapFiller, who, from my understanding, are an organisation tasked to basically activate the town centre, and so accompanying that they have been working with Ikarus, Wongi and Emma to bring in and connect with artists from Christchurch and further afield, and they brought me down from Auckland to essentially run a workshop focussed specifically on graffiti. So, during this one-day workshop we had about ten students, so to speak, ranging in age from seventeen to thirty, and they have basically been taught the foundations of graffiti, and within that I’ve showcased to them a little bit about my work, my process, some technical skills, how to construct a piece and, importantly, some of the potential avenues where graffiti can lead. I think that is incredibly important because often a lot of workshops give the technical skills of how to do graffiti, but without really thinking about the potential contexts it can actually go into beyond just being illegal. Then over the last two days I’ve been working on my Real Time web series, which essentially documents and captures the story of New Zealand graffiti. I’ve just managed to film Wongi and Ikarus as part of episodes fifteen and sixteen.
You talk about that need for the workshop to present both practical elements and discussion about where graffiti can lead someone or how it can be re-imagined and empowered, in terms of the practicalities, what do those discussions sound like? Are you talking about aerosol techniques, or letterform development? Or all of those things? They would have to be quite organic, right? Because everybody already has their own style from which to begin those discussions…
Absolutely, for me, all the people that participated in the workshop were totally varied in expertise and skill level; from those who had only been painting for a couple of months and don’t really have an understanding of graffiti, all they know is that they are painting words or names or letters as the basis of their subject matter, to people who were very experienced and have been painting for five or ten years, they fully understand what graffiti is about and how to do it. So, in terms of my process and the technical aspects I was teaching them, it is a two-fold approach; it is essentially about style and lettering and then there is also the practical side of how to use a spray can. The practical side of lettering, that’s one of the key foundations that grounds graffiti and makes it different from everything else. Graffiti has got its own sort of ‘isms’ and visual codes and ways of doing things, of manipulating letters, which I think is quite different to other art forms. In saying that as well, there is no particular way to paint graffiti, there are many different genres within it, just like in fine art, but definitely, we start off talking about the foundations of graffiti lettering, which really derived from nineteen-sixties, nineteen-seventies, train writing in New York, and from that basis, then you can look at West Coast graffiti, which is a bit more what they call ‘wildstyle’, with more whips, it is more complicated and less legible. Then I show them my style, which is kind of a combination of many different visual aspects and genres of styles. But equally, I look at what they are already drawing and build on that. Somebody might do something really simple and bubbly as opposed to somebody, like the seventeen-year-old kid that was there, his stuff is really wildstyle; crazy, and intricate, already when he is seventeen! So, for me, it is really about trying to give them some advice around how they can strengthen their letter structure and create interesting forms. I think that’s one thing that’s nice about graffiti, it is quite organic, it doesn’t have to look any particular way, there’s a certain kind of pureness and freedom to painting it. For me it also aligns with, to some degree, typography, or abstract painting, because really it is looking at forms and shapes and how you can manipulate those shapes to create something, you know? So, there’s that aspect, but then there’s the practical aspect. Obviously, there are so many paint brands, caps and nozzles that you can put on cans, and with a spray can you can get so many different techniques, it allows you to work quite differently than if you were working in a studio with a brush. So, I explained to the workshop that when you’re using a spray can, especially when you are working in a large scale, not necessarily for this weekend, because we were just painting on the giant cans [at the Youth Space on Manchester Street], for me, working with a can is quite performative…
It’s a very physical exertion, an extension of your physical movements…
It’s quite gestural. When you’re moving your body, you are not just making small movements, when you are painting something very large, with spray paint in particular, it is very physical. So, as part of that idea, I showed them different techniques and what we call ‘can control’, and that’s really being able to control the pressure of a can. Once you can master that, you can almost do anything. For me, one of the key things is that while there are so many nozzles you can use; fat, skinny, medium, whatever, I normally just use a fat cap, which sprays the most amount of paint out as possible, but when you master that can control, you can make it come out more slowly and create more effects. It is kind of like driving a car, right? You can drive a Ferrari, but if you don’t know how to drive it, you will crash it. But if you know how to drive it…
Berst, Auckland, 2018
That discussion of technical elements raises an interesting question, because historically graffiti has this amazing ‘Do-It-Yourself’ culture, right? There are stories of writers boiling their own ink and making their own marker pens, repurposing the nozzles from kitchen cleaners, that whole development, that history. Now that you can buy all these different caps, and all the choice of paint, what sort of impact does that have? When you are thinking about a workshop, are you encouraging innovation in that sense as well? Is that still central, or is it not present to the same degree because the necessity is not there?
I think obviously, everything is accessible to everyone, and to some degree it has removed that sense of discovery, of self-discovery, which is something that graffiti celebrated back in the day. But I think back to things like Style Wars, the writers in that film, they are only like fifteen, so they were not art school students…
Exactly, they were learning in different ways…
They were figuring it out, and they were potentially coming from a low socio-economic background, they were not privileged kids who had everything at their fingertips.
Which is an important and informative background for graffiti writing’s history, right?
Totally, a huge impact.
There is a need for marginalised societies to find ways to express themselves, and that is ultimately what graffiti was…
That’s what it was, I’m not sure if that is what it is now. You know, most of my friends who write now are, not wealthy, but kind of middle class, they are not struggling or anything. But they love graffiti for various reasons. But while there is less self-discovery now, there definitely was that sense for me when I first started. The internet wasn’t so prominent, so for me, I got to engage in that sort of process; ‘Oh what cap do I use?’ ‘Where can I rack cans?’ Because that was a part of the culture…
Exactly.
Because, you know, you’ve got to steal your supplies, at that time we didn’t have the fancy paint, so you were stealing hardware store paint.
Just the luxury of paint designed specifically for painting walls is a big shift from hardware store paint…
Hardware store paint would do the job to do a piece, and in some ways it would also then influence what you would paint, because you could only steal a certain colour palette of black and chrome, or this colour wasn’t actually very good or useful, so you wouldn’t use it. So, there were interesting things like that. What I always loved doing was transferring paint, I don’t know if you have seen that stuff before…
Yeah, I’ve seen videos…
Yeah, there are YouTube tutorial videos on how to do it. So basically, you put one can in the fridge or in the freezer, one in boiling water, and once one is frozen, you get like a ball point pen and the straw that holds all the ink, and put the cans cap to cap and it transfers. For me, I think that was kind of exciting, because it was kind of like mixing paint, right? That’s essentially what it is. It was exciting because there’s so much more of a process, more than just the painting and the action. But I don’t necessarily cover all that stuff in the workshop because people are probably just there because they want to get into the painting and because it is such a short period of time, we just have to get into it, you know? But, in saying that, with some of the writers back home, these are the things that I talk about with them, in the hope that they will do something great with the tools that they have, you know? What can they achieve now? This is what people achieved back then, and this is what they have done now, what about the future?
Berst, Auckland, 2017
If anyone in New Zealand is having a lot of discussions with different writers, it is you. You are definitely a connecting figure in Aotearoa graffiti, what’s your take on your position?
I’m an advocate for it, a total advocate. I see the wave of street art, I see that happening. I see the wave of urban art happening, I see the murals happening, I see the post-graffiti happening, and of course, the fine art gallery space thing happening, and I ask myself, why is graffiti not happening? Why is it not moving in that way? That’s not to say, why is it not becoming mainstream? Or why is it necessarily even becoming accepted? It’s not about being legitimised as an art form, it’s not that type of conversation. For me, I feel like again, it’s actually two-fold; it is about realising that graffiti is an art form that is, in terms of generational knowledge, oral, it is passed on verbally. There is something where writers, they take pictures of their own stuff and whatever, but I know lots of writers who are not willing to share this knowledge, which is a weird one, because I see graffiti like a religion in some ways, like when I go out painting at night time or whatever, I’m practicing, and when I have a conversation with someone, when I run a workshop, I’m preaching, that’s actually what I’m doing. I’m very clear in my intentions and my actions. But some people will go out painting and really believe in graffiti, but they won’t preach, they won’t share. So, it is kind of like saying; ‘I’m Christian, but I won’t tell you the beliefs.’ I’m kind of like an extremist of graffiti when I speak to you, you know?
Spreading the gospel!
But for me, in terms of filing this role, it just kind of happened organically. I’m trying to connect with people, especially with younger writers, because I know that since graffiti is an oral history, in terms of how it is passed down; ‘we do things this way’, ‘we do this…’, ‘you pay for this spot’, blah blah blah, I feel partially responsible to create some resources. For me, doing things like workshops or doing a web series, helps to create resources which then can help other people to do or take certain trajectories, to do different things. For example, Wongi has gone down the graffiti route and now he’s gone down this sort of business route, where he is making a living doing this with the skills he got from graffiti, and there are also X amount of other people who have done that. But there are also a handful of people who have just painted graffiti hardcore, and now they are in their forties or fifties and this is still what they do. Or, alternately, I’ve gone into teaching, and you know, I connect with this and this… So, the intention with, for example, the Real Time web series is for it to be a resource and if some kid comes up to me and says: ‘Hey, I want to make a living from doing graffiti’, I can say: ‘O.K., go watch episodes nine, twelve and eighty-five; you’ve got three people there who have sort of gone down that route, each episode is about an hour, go home and watch it, have a little think, see what they’re doing’, or a kid might say: ‘I want to paint trains…’, I can say: ‘Cool, O.K., well, watch episode ninety and ninety-two…’
So, it’s not just a documentation of the scene, it’s actually a resource to be accessed…
Definitely, it’s a resource.
Berst, Auckland, 2018
Importantly as well, it is something that is understanding and presenting graffiti for what it is itself, it is not trying to fit it into some other narrative or discussion. It is about empowering the culture by celebrating the culture for what it is, and too often, concessions have to made when it comes to graffiti, right?
Absolutely, and the common thing when it is portrayed in the media, is that question: is graffiti art?
That question!
You know, it is such an outdated question…
Such a binary option…
Yeah, and you know it is such an outdated dialogue, for me I think there is such a rich history of graffiti and when I think about all the art movements throughout art history: Pop Art, the Surrealists, whatever, graffiti has been around since the sixties…
That’s just graffiti as we determine it now, right? I mean the actual lineage is much longer…
Exactly, but in terms of writing, like stylised writing…
Signature-based graffiti…
Yeah, signature-based graffiti, it has been around since the sixties, so what is that now?
Over fifty years…
Exactly, what other art form has got such a strong hold on the art scene?
And has had that longevity?
It’s not like people are like: ‘Oh, yes, the Cubist movement has taken over the world…’
Those sorts of movements struggle to really exist outside of the original circles, they kind of become watered down, whereas graffiti has been handed down through generation to generation and has maintained its unique dynamics…
But how does it do that? It’s interesting…
What is that essence?
It is also interesting, because it is something that has developed within society, it’s a social thing. It hasn’t been developed in an institution, like when you think about Cubism, someone inside an art school, they are being told that’s an important art movement, whereas this is something that has operated for fifty years, it’s crazy!
Berst, Auckland, 2018
That endurance is incredible, I am constantly telling people that we are talking about something that has not only survived for fifty, almost sixty years, but in every corner of the globe, we are not just talking about one particular place…
We’re not talking about New York, you go anywhere and there is graffiti…
Stay tuned for Part Two of Berst: The Faith ofGraffiti…
Jumping straight back into the conversation with Christchurch Zinefest’s Alice Bush and Jane Maloney, we discuss digital and physical production methods, the presence of dissenting opinions and ideas in independent publishing, zine vending machines and the challenges of displaying the Zine Library…
We have touched on the fact that in the digital age we have this other channel to disseminate ideas, is there some convergence, between analogue methods of physically sending items, and the benefits of digital transmission? I mean you could create PDF versions that you could then transmute that people could produce and disseminate, are those tactics popular or acceptable?
Alice Bush: It’s different, like there are digital zines that people create, but I’ve always found it different, because a zine is an object, like that’s what makes it a zine, and in terms of putting PDFs up on the internet, it’s a bit different, but there’s always that thing where if you are wanting to spread your zine around the world then put it up on Instagram and people can find it…
Jane Maloney: Yeah, like a buy online option.
AB: There’s a bit of a community in Instagram and different sites where people will follow different zine makers and buy the zines, it’s like this little sub-community.
JM: Yeah, I’ve definitely bought people’s zines from following them on Instagram. Of all the social media platforms, Instagram is the one that people are attracted to for these object-based things because it’s visual-based. Of course, it’s still a business that is still trying to advertise to you and trying to control what you see.
The Longest, Wobbliest, Silliest Guitar, by Ashley Ronning, collection of the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library (Photo credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press)
In their most pure form zines can combat that, so there’s almost an antipathy or weariness to that, using a platform that can act against the benefits of producing a zine as well…
JM: Yeah, it’s just a case of using it to your advantage without exploiting your work or any one else, or anyone else’s work… (laughs)
AB: I guess that’s part of the reason why zines haven’t disappeared as well, because those companies all own those sites, you can’t really be free, or use your free speech…
JM: Zines are like the ultimate form of uncensored media, maybe one of the only ones….
Recently there has been an example of a sort of Alt-Right street artist, making these interventions that are pro-Trump, which is kind of unexpected, but really it just shows the open potential of such tactics. Do you see that spectrum in terms of zine making as well?
JM: Alt-Right zines? I mean, I don’t specifically know of any off-hand because I don’t particularly choose to find them, but of course there are going to be various voices making zines. I watched a Vice documentary about a white supremacist group and that’s how they share information within their community, by making zines, or more like fliers, but that’s still a form of a zine, but, you know, that’s underground publishing, because how else would they spread their information?
Just the existence of that spectrum, that diversity, importantly creates a dynamic to respond to, everything is not contained in its own neatly defined bubble…
JM: Yeah, I mean it’s like everyone, you just hope that there is a greater number of zines produced for the good, wholesome reasons…
Well, they don’t have to be wholesome right? (laughs)
JM: No, but not dabbling in racism and homophobia, and all those things. You can’t stop anyone making a zine, just like you can’t stop anyone believing in something you don’t necessarily agree with. Heaps of people make educational zines, around like transphobia and why it is bad, homophobia and why it’s bad, and they are important because a lot of people just don’t know, when you have a privileged background in terms of education, you don’t realise how little some people know about things, they only know what they knew growing up. So, creating the counter to that in a zine is a good way to create a discussion.
Prick, by Caitlin Shearer, collection of the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library (Photo credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press)
It comes back to dissemination and how the information gets out, which brings us back to Zinefest and what the goals are for the event. Obviously, it allows zine makers to come together, but it also allows people to find other channels of information and objects of interest, so what events are going on for Zinefest 2018 to engage that wider audience?
AB: We’ve got a few workshops, which is something that we are trying to do a lot more, to reach people…
JM: We have to start from somewhere and making workshops are more accessible and suitable for the resources we have, obviously we would love to have more writing workshops and content-based stuff in the future.
AB: But at the moment we mostly have visual artists who are great, and the workshops we are having this year are coming from that. We’ve got a printmaking workshop, a collage workshop and Jane’s Riso(graph) workshop. In the past we have done poetry workshops and different things like that, but you know, it’s important to get people in and making, and I think when people think of visual objects, especially when you have something like ‘magazine’ attached to it, people think they can’t do it because that’s not something that people usually do just by themselves, usually. It’s seen as inaccessible. But I feel like it’s just getting people in and getting them to make something, so they realise it’s an object and they can actually do it.
That there are fewer rules than one might expect, there’s no word count…
AB: There’s no word count, there’s no number of pages you have to have…
JM: There can be literally one bit of paper folded up and that can be a zine.
With regards to public engagement, and this often comes up when I’m talking about urban art, how you talk about the important transgressive element of rebellious practices? We’ve talked about how zines don’t have the need to break laws to exist, but there is still an important acknowledgment of their subversive potential, so is that something you build in to the workshops, or is that a little bit difficult when you are working with institutions like the Christchurch Art Gallery?
AB: It’s hard to tell people what to make things about, and I feel like if someone’s going to make something that does talk about serious issues, about activism, that kind of thing, they will do it, because if they are thinking about it already, they will do it. It is hard to get people to realise that’s what this vehicle could be though…
JM: I do get trapped, especially with my printing method and it being purely aesthetic, people just working with collage images or just figuring out the printing method, so we try to make it more about zines and about the content in a way that these are just ways you can produce it.
So, how do you inform people about actually getting their work out, how they make a zine the social object? How do you encourage them in that respect?
JM: We made a zine about zines, which includes that sort of information that we can give away now which is really good…
AB: I feel like people see Zinefest and go this is something that I can do, like we have open stand holder applications every year, we try to keep it free. We put it on our Facebook page and make sure it’s accessible and out there to as many people as we possibly can. It’s advertising that these workshops can be a first step to being introduced to the zine world, the zine community and people already making zines in Christchurch.
JM: They might have a burning opinion on something and by going to the Zinefest market they will see that people are making things about their opinions or about personal standpoints on different issues, and then they realise that it is ok. I feel like sharing your own opinion is really frowned upon a lot of the time, which is stupid…
Um… what’s a zine?, produced by MK Press for the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library’s exhibition at CoCA’s Lux Espresso gallery, 3rd August – 16th September 2018
Well, in this digital era, people are so opinionated and empowered by the anonymous platform and will shoot down dissenting voices so quickly. But you can still believe in something and not have that aggressive, opinionated approach…
JM: Yeah, the internet warrior thing has changed the whole idea of free speech and discussion, but I think people who make zines are legitimately interested in what they are making them about, you can’t just feign interest…
The other great thing with a zine is that you can make your argument, you can present your opinion and idea, but it isn’t in a way that says: ‘Hey, your comment sucks!’ It is encapsulated in its own form, rather than in response…
JM: It’s not just a snap decision or opinion.
AB: It’s to do with the care you actually put into the object. It takes time to make it, so you want your thoughts to be succinct and you want what you are writing down to be…
JM: Well-informed.
AB: Yeah, well-informed, because of the care that’s put into the object.
JM: It’s not bang, bang, bang on the keyboard and you are done.
This is a typical interview question, but outside of your own work, which local zines are notable or interesting?
JM: I think it is always worth trying to find ones that University groups still make, like the FemSoc zine, because that’s always been part of the culture of the University and it should continue to be part of that culture. University is changing so much, it costs so much more to go to University now, and it’s not as academic anymore. Engineering and stuff, they were trades and Science was from a research point of view. With all these changes, it is important to support these groups that make these things that engage in independent critical discourses.
JM: It’s a personal zine, it’s specifically about his life, or just small parts of it.
AB: And it’s a great introduction to zine culture in New Zealand, because it’s been running for so long and you can literally find it anywhere, it’s in a lot of places…
JM: He’s really nailed down his distribution channels.
AB: And then there’s a zine maker who travels around and makes zines out of old book covers and stuff and it is sort of a more poetry and literature-based zine. There’s lots of different things happening.
JM: We also run the Christchurch Zine Library, and that is a good resource if people want to see more zines.
How is the Zine Library built as a collection? Is it trying to document the history of the culture?
JM: At the moment, it’s just from personal collections of both Alice and I, so they do cover quite different areas. There are also ones that have been sent to us. I’m part of different publishing and printing groups on Facebook and online, so I get sent quite a few things that people have just made themselves. Those ones are generally aesthetically focussed, because they might be exploring a printing option or production method. But yeah, we’ve got quite a range.
Will it be part of the Christchurch Library when it re-opens?
AB: No. The thing about the Christchurch Library is they have their own collection, that, I think, they are going to put on show when the library re-opens, although I’m not totally sure about that yet, so whenever someone says they are a librarian I ask: ‘Are you going to put the zine library in?’
JM: we talked to someone at the Word Festival, it was obviously an idea to join it all together, but I don’t know…
So, how do you display the library currently?
JM: So, it was recently at CoCA, in the Lux Espresso gallery space, which was really just to get it out to a wider audience. There was no specific reason to choose CoCA or anything, it was just an opportunity. We would probably prefer it to be further away from institutions.
AB: Because as soon as you get it into an institution, they try and say: ‘no you can’t put this in or that in…’
JM: We’ve never really thought about a permanent public display, it’s more something we bring out for events or when we are invited to places. It would be nice to have it publicly accessible, but we haven’t really thought about the work that goes in to that yet.
AB: It is hard to find space.
JM: And supervision, because while you want people picking them up and reading them, we don’t want them to literally be picked up and walked off!
The Zine Library at CoCA’s Lux Espresso gallery, August 2018 (Photo credit: Bayley Corfield)
It would be cool to have a zine version of a book fridge, not so much for the Library, but for people to drop off and take away zines, a sort of distribution fridge!
JM: It would be great to have something, there is a zine vending machine in Auckland…
AB: Yeah, that’s so cool, it’s in the Auckland Library, I think.
JM: It’s not run by the Library, it got funding. But as long as your zine fits under a certain size, you can send multiples to put in, although because of the funding, the organiser is working just with local Auckland artists and zine makers.
AB: There is one in Toronto, which has been running for a few years, they are just so cool!
JM: It would be cool to have something like that connected with the Zine Library, where people can just take copies. We made the zine about zines so that people could just take that.
AB: It would be nice if the Zine Library was more accessible for people to come and take things…
JM: …and drop things off as well.
AB: Zinefest only happens once a year and that’s the main event for zines in Christchurch, so it would be nice to have something ongoing.
JM: Zines being a relatively organic object, the Zine Library doesn’t have to be super structured, and if things go missing out of the Zine Library, it’s not the end of the world. I document them all, I take photos of everything we end up with. In CoCA, people were taking in and clipping their own ones into the display, and that’s cool too…
That is awesome, that must be a desirable outcome, right?
JM: Yeah, it’s for other people, it’s not for us.
AB: I just don’t want the whole thing to disappear!
JM: We don’t want people to raid it! Because that’s how things collapse obviously. More stuff going on throughout the year, on top of Zinefest, would be cool, because the thing about Christchurch is that events and organised things don’t seem to last.
AB: People forget about stuff very easily.
JM: People just assume everything is temporary, everyone assumes something new is temporary because of a placement issue or something like that, so everything takes a while to solidify.
It takes a real commitment to keep doing it. So, I think I asked this question at the start of this conversation and we went off on another direction (laughs), but what specific events are taking place in Zinefest 2018?
JM: We have a few workshops in the build up to the market, I ran a zine making workshop with risograph printing at the Christchurch Art Gallery…
AB: We also had a workshop at The Corner Store, where people could make little woodblock plates to use for a zine cover or in a zine. And then on the 25th of September, we have a cut paper workshop with Sarah Lund, in the Pūmanawa space at the Arts Centre, which is also where the Zinefest Market is happening on the 30th of September, which is like the final hurrah of the fest.
JM: We are going to have the Zine Library on display at Fiksate Gallery, at 165 Gloucester Street, from the 19th until the 29th of September. The best place to go for finding out when things are happening is on Facebook, that’s the only constant social media we use, which is @zinefestchristchurch. You can also find information on the Zine Library on Facebook, which is @chchzinelibrary.
The Zine Library on display at Fiksate Gallery, 165 Gloucester Street
Follow Zinefest and the Christchurch/Ōtautahi Zine Library on Facebook to keep up with their activities, visit the Library at Fiksate Gallery (165 Gloucester Street) and get along to the Zinefest Market on the 30th September at the Pūmanawa Room in the Arts Centre, 10am – 4pm.
Feature Image credit: Bayley Corfield
Zine Library graphic credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press
I have always thought of zines in relation to urban art – subversive, rebellious intrusions into publishing, sent out into the world to disrupt more commercial networks of production. Yet, of course, there is so much more to zine culture. When I think back, I didn’t consider the potential in the homemade comics I drew as a child, possibly because I was mimicking the comics I couldn’t afford to buy. But the reality is that zines, much like my bootleg comics, are the realisation of the power in independent action, a signifier of the way we can create alternatives to the dominant cultures and productions and in small ways re-shape our world. With the 2018 incarnation of Christchurch Zinefest being staged over September, it provided an opportune moment to talk about zines and independent publishing with people who know a lot more than me: Zinefest organisers Alice Bush and Jane Maloney. Both Alice and Jane are zine makers, as well as champions of the forms and culture, understanding both the practicalities of producing as well as the significance of the objects conceptually. We sat down at the newly relocated Fiksate Gallery on Gloucester Street to talk about Christchurch Zinefest, the Christchurch/Ōtautahi Zine Library, the history of zines, the tactics of getting zines out in the world, and the impact of the digital age on zine making…
Fill me in a little bit about the history of Zinefest. Alice, have you been involved with Zinefest since its inception?
Alice Bush: No, I picked it up in 2015, I think. But Jane did it with me the first year… No, it was 2016 the first year that I did it, but I’d been going two years before that. I think it’s been running since like 2011…
Jane Maloney: I think it’s been running since my last year at University, so it would’ve been around 2011 or 2012.
Which seems really recent…
JM: Yeah, it is.
Being that zine culture, I assume, goes right back into any form of independent publishing. Was punk an important starting point for zines as we know them today?
AB: No, before that. Science fiction was sort of the first iteration of like fanzine culture, in the early 1930s. But even before that you see people printing independently published literature and that sort of thing, you know it can go right back to the start of printing. The first ‘zines’ were printed in the 1950s, or 1940s, when science fiction started to take off. It was mostly male-dominated as well, which is very interesting with where it has gone later on, with the Riot grrrl movement and stuff, and women reclaiming that sort of thing. But yeah, zines have been around a long time…
When did the specific term develop? Etymologically it’s a shortened version of ‘magazine’, right?
JM: I think it was when magazines were more popular, and the publishing of magazines was more mainstream, so the word kind of developed from that obviously. I feel like that was more when it was a punk kind of culture, because it was such a direct and important way to differentiate between mainstream publishing and underground publishing…
AB: Actually, I’d say no. I think it was zines, like fanzines, science fiction fanzines. At first, they weren’t calling them that. I did like a big research project on the history of zines and got really into what happened around that time, and I think it was like the early fifties that they started using the term…
Chloro Forms, by Elliot Ferguson, collection of the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library (Photo credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press)
But fanzine was developed from magazine to signify an independent approach?
JM: Yeah, I guess so. It’s still like more of a subculture obviously. It always was a subculture, but it was smaller, because it was just fanzines, that’s what zines were…
AB: But I mean, so were punk zines. They were just fanzines. But zines have just been a thing people pick up and use, that different subcultures pick up and use when they can.
JM: It’s a vehicle.
A tactic for disseminating ideas…
AB: Yeah.
As you say, any subculture can utilise it as a tactic, so the beauty is how the independence and flexibility can be adopted to any cause or idea…
JM: Yeah.
What was the stimulus for the Christchurch Zinefest? Christchurch has these interesting bubbling underground histories, like the music cultures that were influenced by the US Military presence with Operation Deep Freeze, that meant types of music were arriving here before places like Auckland. Is there a similar story around the emergence of zines in Christchurch?
JM: Yeah, music has been really important in the development of Christchurch’s cultural identity, and obviously zines are a big part of music as well…
So, has that lineage been explored? Did it take a while for zines to really emerge from those cultures locally?
JM: Well, the University (of Canterbury) was obviously important, because student-published political activist zines were coming out of there, I mean that’s a thing for universities everywhere I suppose. Canterbury University is such an important part of Christchurch, well it was, especially when it was in town. I’m not sure it is now (laughs).
AB: At UC, especially in the Fine Arts departments, they have always had a very strong connection with music, there are old event and gig posters in the archives that date way back that have been produced by Fine Arts…
JM: Christchurch has always had that alternative presence, alternate music, even alternate fashion has been a big thing. Christchurch is always seen as having a bigger distinction between this alternative universe of everything against this very white, British, super conservative city…
Banana Soy Milkshake, by Inky Palms, collection of the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library (Photo credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press)
That polarity, that distinction, is because of the strength of that conservative reputation, right? It has provided something to react to, but it has also provided a cover which means a lot of that subversive presence is under the surface, it’s strong, but it isn’t as visible. So, what was the driving factor in Zinefest getting underway by the time we reach 2011?
AB: I feel like you can’t ignore the fact that around 2011, the earthquakes are happening, it’s an obvious thing and maybe that was a part of it, I don’t know. I feel like zines have started to skyrocket in popularity because of the internet and because of digital media, like self-publishing itself has started to grow as a thing…
Fandom is a really big thing now as well, like it’s long been a thing, but it’s really grown as an industry or culture, a subcultural thing. You see Fests and Cons (Conventions) going on everywhere, do you think that explosion has contributed to a growth in zine culture post-Millennium?
AB: It’s interesting with fandom, because I feel like in the seventies and eighties, there was Star Wars, Star Trek, stuff like that, and zines were being made around those things, and that’s the kind of fandom that still exists today, and I feel like when the nineties and the early 2000s came around, there weren’t as many fanzines being produced because of the internet. The only reason that a subculture was using zines was to communicate with each other and inform people and they didn’t need it anymore. But recently I’ve been seeing more and more zines that are ‘art’ zines, fan-works and stuff like that, and that’s really interesting, it’s something I wouldn’t think would come off the internet, I wouldn’t have thought that they would need to do that again but it has happened and its quite interesting…
JM: Zinefests had started in other cities around New Zealand well before the Christchurch one…
AB: I think Wellington’s is the oldest. It’s been around a long time.
JM: Like 2008 maybe?
Even when you are talking about 2008, it still seems quite youthful, because we’re talking about something with roots in the 1930s and something that would need support networks due to its independence. Is it more a reflection of the idea that fests have been a more recent phenomenon?
JM: I think that, it’s not just for zine makers, because if you do make zines religiously and you are trading them with people, you find those connections anyway, through the internet or whatever channels you are going through, or you’ve already got them, you don’t need a fest for a zine maker, it’s for the popularity and public interest in them, what they are and what they are about. That might have come through the popular culture getting hold of zines, like Kanye West is making zines about his work now…
AB: They’re not really zines though!
JM: No, but it is now associated with people like that, so people are like: ‘what is this?’ It might just be fleeting, but more people are interested…
AB: Zinefests weren’t a very big thing before the 2010s, and I feel like there has been a shift towards them, whereas there was previously more of a focus on distribution centres, or ‘distros’, and mailing lists where you just sign up for a zine and you receive it, and I think that shift is to do with an alternate people coming in, there’s a lot more artists, there’s a lot more like writers who do one-offs rather than a whole series…
JM: The people collecting zines were usually zine makers as well, now people with no previous interest, they might come to a fest and have a look around and be like, ‘oh, ok this is what it is’, and then leave, or they might find like an artist-made zine and be like this is really nice, pretty looking thing and get into it, which is great…
AB: We talked before about zines being a vehicle, and there’s been a shift in the 2010s where instead of it being a vehicle for something, the zine itself is a thing, it’s the thing you are wanting to collect…
JM: Zines are not necessarily as content driven anymore.
AB: Yeah, it’s come out of the subcultures and become a thing of its own.
Which is interesting because the two of you have slightly different approaches to zines, right? Jane, would it be fair to say that your interest is more focussed on the design and object-making process?
JM: Yeah, that’s definitely how I came about, because I’ve always been interested in publishing from being a graphic designer and being into print or working predominantly in print, so it’s like an aesthetic thing. I can make something and distribute it myself, or help other people do that. I enjoy helping people make them and distribute them as well. But I’ve never had a specific social or cultural focus. Maybe because when I got into fanzines and stuff like that, getting information, I was really into live journal, I was a big internet user for that, I’d never even thought of zines. I was always super into The X-Files, and there were online platforms and things and I didn’t know there were fanzines necessarily. I mean I’ve always had a background in art, but I never thought about making them, so from a publishing point of view, and being interested in that, that’s where I came into it and that’s where I really hope that I can help people just figure out how to do it. I don’t necessarily think anytime soon I’ll start making my own about any specific topic other than about zine making, zine publishing and zine printing…
So, you are interested in a self-referential content?
JM: That’s it, at the moment, yeah.
The Journal of Uncle Harold (Literally) – Volume 1, by Uncle Harold, collection of the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library (Photo credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press)
Alice, would you say that your interests are slightly different, or do they echo that?
AB: Yeah, I’d say it’s slightly different. I mean I still went through the art school system, and did graphic design, but I do have more of a focus on getting ideas out there and using it as a vehicle for something, I think. I make feminist zines, and I make some fanzines. But I also feel like I do have an interest in some of what Jane was saying, I am interested in publishing and I am interested in graphic design…
JM: That also comes from our background, from where we studied…
AB: Yeah, we studied at the same place, at UC, but I also have a big interest in actually getting my ideas out and creating something that’s going to inform people…
So, in terms of the approach to content, as an idea as well as a form, do you have any influences that have sort of conflated the two? I mean, design is all about how to present information in a visual form, but were you influenced by an ideology and an aesthetic approach separately, or are they inherently intertwined?
AB: You mean like zine influences?
More than just zines, because I guess when you are dealing with specific content, you must be taking from wider sources, necessarily…
AB: I get a lot of influence from the internet, because there is so much to access, but speaking of zine influences, Riot grrrl is a big thing, I think every feminist zine made anytime after the 1990s was influenced by Riot grrrl, so that’s a big one. It’s quite interesting because before I started making zines, I didn’t really have knowledge of anything else that was really going on. I mean, there was stuff to read, at University there was FemSoc (Feminist Society), they put out a zine and have done so for however many years they’ve existed, so that was interesting to read and gave me ideas. It’s sort of something that happens with people making these things, it’s not necessarily coming from anywhere, it’s just that you want to make a thing…
JM: It’s quite introspective.
Is there a visual lineage in zines that people perhaps feel obligated to maintain, a certain edginess or rough quality, or is that changing?
JM: An aesthetic? People still do make really ‘rough and ready’ zines, like they’ve just written it down and photocopied it. If you are truly just content driven and you are specifically talking about an idea or an issue or something personal to you, then nothing’s unacceptable. But because zines are getting more popular and more designers are making them, and designers can’t do something without making it look good (laughs), there is a real aesthetic change apparent in zine making…
AB: There are still purists out there, there are people who think that there is one way to make zines and that’s the punk rock, Sharpie and typewriter approach…
JM: Cut and paste…
AB: Which is one way to make a zine.
JM: And that’s an aesthetic, you know, that’s something people strive to make their zines look like now, as well as actually being a form of zine making itself.
AB: Definitely.
JM: But there are also people who only want to make zines if they look a certain way, or you know, because artists make a lot of zines now as well, their zines are going look a lot like their practice. So, you can get those purists, who make their zines free, and they are distributed widely, and mass produced, but then there will be artist-made zines that are runs of five and handmade and might cost you $50 or $100 or whatever, which is obviously quite a new thing, but it’s still fine.
AB: It’s like a divide between two different ways of thinking, I guess, there is that newer artist-made approach, and it’s great because it’s a way of artists getting their work out there and being able to sell work…
JM: Totally, and communicating ideas that they might not have been able to with their existing practice…
AB: But there’s still the shitty stuff as well!
And you mean that in the best possible way! That also raises the idea of dissemination, you know from the idea of trading or selling, but there must also be tactical approaches to disseminating works though more subversive means. I’m thinking obviously about the tactics of urban art here and its ability to disrupt the flow of official communication. Is there a danger sometimes with zine making, particularly if you are expressing ideas that might be contra to mainstream thinking, that it can become too internalised in terms of circulation? What tactics do people employ to get zines where they might not normally be found?
JM: Across the road when I was driving here actually, there was this anti animal cruelty organisation in Victoria Square, and they make zines and put them in supermarkets around the meat section, and leave them in cafés that don’t have any vegan food or still promote animal products, so from an activist point of view of course, they are going to leave them in places that they are unwanted, and that’s a huge part of it, because when it comes to an activism, you can’t just operate in your own circle, like they already know what you are talking about…
AB: It’s the same with FemSoc, they leave their zines in the Undercroft (a communal student space) and all over the place, and that’s one of the reasons they produce the zine, because it’s going to be landing in someone’s lap that might not necessarily be exposed to those ideas.
Which is the benefit of the independent publishing, right? You are getting an idea out that you don’t necessarily have other avenues to get a fair chance of expressing…
JM: Yeah, exactly.
That element has always been attractive to me in zine culture, because it relates to that idea of an uninvited presence.
JM: Unlike graffiti and stuff, it’s not illegal or vandalism, so the only danger is that someone is going to throw it out, that someone is going to find a whole pile of them and chuck them in the bin.
Even then, someone can come along and see them in the bin and take them from there, so the life cycle lasts as long as the physical object exists and can have multiple transactions of circulation.
JM: Yeah, there’s literally no losing I guess, unless you are putting so much money into it for some reason that you need to sell them. But when it comes to activism or any political reason why you might be making zines, it is, I feel, the best underground way to express ideas, because you can’t get prosecuted for defacing something. It’s like people deface political billboards around town and stuff like that, I’m all for that, but you know, it’s more risky…
Zines are another option to disrupt those discourses. They can be more in depth in many ways too, right? Sometimes a message can get lost in a discussion about legality or vandalism, or the idea might not be as in-depth because it has to be a more singular statement, but with a zine you get to present a manifesto, and often across multiple editions, so content can evolve over time…
JM: You get to tell people why you are doing this, which is good, I mean no one has to say why they are doing anything, but it is good to have a format that allows you to…
Flesh World, by Dirk Peterson, collection of the Christchurch/Otautahi Zine Library (Photo credit: Jane Maloney/MK Press)
What about the local interaction between makers and the various publics, we touched on trading in a global sense, so how does zine distribution work in a place like Christchurch, which is relatively small? Do a lot of the zines produced here end up outside of Christchurch, or do a lot stay in the city?
AB: A lot stay in the city.
JM: Yeah, I think that’s the same everywhere though.
AB: With distribution studios, there aren’t as many around as there used to be, but there are still ones in Melbourne, New York and London, like the big cities all have them, and they all accept zines if you send them to them. It’s the amount of effort the zine makers want to put in. A lot of zine makers travel for fests, mostly around New Zealand, but I’ve heard of people going over to Melbourne for the big one they have there…
JM: Yeah, Melbourne’s a really accessible fest for New Zealand zine makers.
AB: It’s a big fest, it’s probably the biggest one in Oceania.
JM: It’s massive and obviously it’s reasonably close, I mean it costs almost the same for me to fly to Auckland than to Melbourne. It’s huge and they are trying to make it a two-day event now as well. The non-profit organisation that runs it, Sticky Institute, are a distribution centre and they have been running for a long time…
AB: If you send Sticky your zine, I think they accept ten at a time and they will just put them on their shelves…
But, again to draw parallels with urban art, often the more urgent expression needs to be local, right?
AB: Yeah, absolutely. Definitely.
JM: I think as the content is something you have personally thought about, it’s generally quite local. I’m not as passionate about politics in another country as I would be here, because I live here, and it affects me, it’s just natural.
When I heard about the Justice and Emergency Services Precinct mural being painted by Wellington artist Chimp earlier this year, I must admit I had to dive into social media to find out more about the artist. When I explored Instagram, the deft skill evident in his aerosol depictions of faces and native birds, infused with energetic insertions of graffiti and other eclectic forms, was immediately endearing and made me wonder why I hadn’t been familiar with his work. A few days later I made my way down to the large stretch of wall on Lichfield Street to watch Chimp in action. I stayed back and intently watched him paint. I was taken by the impressive technical prowess, the way it seemed he was sketching on the wall, layering back and forth to create tonal qualities that would be neglected by a viewer only witnessing the finished project. After seeing his friendly interactions with passers-by, even though I was wary of interrupting his progress, I went over and introduced myself and we started chatting. Chimp was friendly, down-to-earth and welcoming, even with a massive task in front of him and a deadline fast approaching. We tentatively made plans to try and catch up before he returned home and to record an interview. Unfortunately, due to the need to put in long hours on the wall and conflicting schedules, we missed our chance. Instead, we reconvened online and over a flurry of e-mails we chatted about the Justice Precinct mural, the differences between Wellington and Christchurch, and Chimp’s varied career so far. As a result, this interview is months in the making, but still worth the wait, providing insight into an unexpected contributor to Christchurch’s urban art, someone who it will be worth knowing about as his profile continues to grow on a national scale…
How does an artist from Wellington find himself painting a huge wall at Christchurch’s new Justice and Emergency Services Precinct? How did the commission come about?
I was originally quite surprised to hear from them when the email came through from the Justice Department. I thought I may have been in trouble or something before I read it! They had seen my work on social media platforms and liked it. It was quite flattering to hear from them and I really appreciated the opportunity.
I imagine most people would be a little wary of an unexpected email from the Department of Justice! Did you have to think about it for long? Obviously different artists will have different ways of analysing and reconciling who they work with, is that something you had already thought through with commissioned work generally, or was the Department of Justice a slightly different proposition?
It was a bit of a surprise, but I was mainly curious as to what it could be about. We organised a meeting to talk about the possibilities of the project and it sounded like an awesome opportunity to expand my work into the South Island. Having a lot of family in Christchurch made it an easy choice to head there.
What type of entities have you worked with in the past, and how do you reconcile the compromises you often have to make with work for high-profile organisations? Do you separate commissioned public work into different categories based on what freedom you are afforded, or do you try and ensure you can balance the client’s wishes with your own vision?
Just before the Christchurch Justice Department contacted me, I had recently completed a mural for the New Zealand Parliament Buildings. Throughout the design process, I find it easiest to see what the client is wanting in terms of the topic of the design and the aesthetic they want within the design. Sometimes clients reference parts of my previous pieces that they have seen. From there I create a design and send it through to the client and we alter it back and forth. I find this process the best for me to ensure that there is a balance between my vision and the client’s ideas. With the Parliament job, for example, they had said that they liked my birds incorporated with the graffiti art, so I sent through a design and they seemed to allow a lot of artistic freedom as the design only had a few minor tweaks from the initial concept image.
Glitch 3, Parliament Building (Basement), Wellington, 2017 (Photo credit: Alana Frost)
Speaking of that distinctive personal style, how did it develop? Is it from writing graffiti or working on the street, or is it something specifically developed as an approach to mural work?
My parents were very supportive of things that I wanted to try while I was growing up, so when I decided that I wanted to move my drawing to painting on a larger scale, I was allowed to develop my style in my spare time on scraps of wood in the garage. That being said, working on a small piece of wood in the family garage to working on large-scale outdoor murals like the Christchurch piece definitely required years of practice and development in larger outdoor environments
Is your imagery based on a specific narrative or is it perhaps a reflection of the public nature of muralism, something that fits that responsibility? Who or what has influenced your style? Your Instagram profile acknowledges hip hop, and I think of the likes of Tristan Eaton and Martin Whatson as possible reference points too…
The images and ideas I depict are often unique to each space and each wall. When creating the content of a work, I try to tailor the design to the space and the surrounding communities of that particular area, while still developing my personal style and visual language. I often try to project my own ideas and narratives within a piece, but it is up to the audience to interpret their own meaning behind each unique design. I often listen to hip hop as I am going through the design process as the lyrics inspire me with narratives, quotes and ideas that I can interpret visually as my own. In terms of visual artists, Tristan Eaton is a big influence, as is Pose MSK, and James Dawe, they all experiment with composition, colour, and mixes of rendering quality.
Your work is highly refined, how have you developed your aerosol technique over time? Do you conceptualize your can work in a certain way? Because when I was watching you paint, it appeared quite methodical, very certain, like every mark mattered, working over areas, layering paint to create tones…
I love the depth created by complicated works and have great respect for artists who can balance it all into a resolved piece. I try to design separately before beginning a final painting, mainly because having a full understanding of what you are attempting to create once you are actually at the wall aids productivity and allows me to focus solely on generating quality rendering while having the confidence of knowing that the composition and colour choices work. In saying that though, there are some details, particularly line weight variations, such as fat cap flairs and ultra-sharp outlines, that cannot be generated by pencil or marker but only by aerosol. This allows the piece to grow somewhat organically especially once you are standing up throwing and extending your arm completely, rather than seated, drawing or on the computer. Time and practice have given me the experience to develop my own techniques for painting, I appreciate that spray paint is traditionally a self-taught obsession.
Fantail, Upper Hutt, 2018 (Photo Credit: Alana Frost)
As part of that self-taught element, how much do you draw from other influences; from looking at what other artists are doing, the effects they are creating, or their process? Or do you think in technical terms, like the actual physical potential of aerosol as a medium with very particular qualities, and work on technique based on that understanding? Your process, building form and tone through layers, is, to my mind, very painterly, and suggests you have an understanding of how the aerosol medium can be used…
My original drive and passion for graffiti and street art was rooted in the development of style, so I have tried to establish my own. I do think I take influence in every form though, whether it is subject, composition or technique. When teaching yourself all the influences you reference are based all on your own taste. I personally go through obsessions with different artists’ styles. For example, when I began painting with aerosol and focused on letterforms, I was influenced by Peeta’s sculptural abstract forms, but there wouldn’t be much evidence of that in my work now.
Spray involves building a skeletal sketch form, blocking in tones and layering details. Before I was getting opportunities to paint big walls I honed my skills painting canvases with aerosol only, no stencils, as I wanted to be able to paint everything freehand. This meant it took me a long time to produce sharp, well-proportioned work. But the skills I built up translate to big walls well. If you can paint a detailed portrait on a canvas with spray, the rendering quality on a wall is amazing. Brushes never gave me motivation to produce work because it felt like a chore. Even when I was just starting out, cans were addictive because you can throw so much paint around quickly. To me, it feels like the most powerful medium of creation and destruction.
However, as I grow as an artist I want to produce things that aren’t really possible with freehand spray, so I am looking at screen printing and have been producing digital work longer than I’ve been spray painting.
Tell us about the concept behind Organic Matters, the Justice Precinct mural? Are there symbolic reasons for the choice of specific bird life and flora? Does the absence of the collage-style fills significantly alter the way you conceive of the wall and how it might respond to the space it occupies?
Organic Matters is a play on the term organic matter. I’ve used this title to mimic the important activities going on within the Justice Precinct buildings while relating back to the natural subject matter. Using all native local birds and flowers, with the exception of the cherry blossoms, which refer to the gardens of Christchurch. For this particular client, the professional nature of the location and the range of people that will see the mural, the less provocative, stylised realism fills worked better than the graffiti collage style I often work with. Yes, taking away a part of the subject matter I use affects how I conceptualise a work. Instead, the design focused on expressing my style and originality through composition, line, and colour, rather than the higher visual contrast created by mixing subjects and rendering styles.
Organic Matters, Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct, Lichfield Street, Christchurch, 2018 (Photo Credit: Alana Frost)
You mention the type of people around the Justice Precinct as influencing the style. How were your interactions with people who passed as you were working? It is a very central spot, but also possibly populated with a diverse range of people at varying times…
The feedback was great. People who appreciate graffiti and street art were stoked with the process and can work, and everyone appreciated the birds, particularly the identity and life projected through the eyes. I had good chats with road workers, with people coming out of the police station, officers, lawyers… Overall it seemed like the people of Christchurch are very supportive of their growing urban art scene!
Did you have a preconception of the city before coming down? Were you aware of the scene down here, or at least the profile?
I have a lot of family in Christchurch, so I have visited many times growing up. But this was the first time as an adult. I’ve admired the street art festivals in Christchurch since the quakes and the graffiti scene seems to have exploded with the derelict spots providing canvases everywhere.
Did you explore the city? Or did you hit the ground running on the wall? Any favourite pieces or spots?
It was pretty much just two weeks of painting the wall, with a couple days of rain to relax and try some of the different places to eat in Christchurch. I would have liked to have painted with the locals and had a go on the giant cans [on Manchester Street], but it was straight back to University classes the day after I got back home. B List Tattoo looked after me with paint supply and even organised shipping the leftovers back for me, so that was awesome.
Even without getting to spend time painting with any local artists, how did you perceive Christchurch from Wellington in terms of the way urban art is part of each city? What is your take on the scene in Wellington?
I would say Christchurch’s scene is exploding with all of the exposed walls that can be seen from far away with all of the empty lots, whereas Wellington has tighter alleys and more hidden gems. As street art has become more accepted there has been significant growth in commissioned work while the streets are always being painted with fresh graffiti in both cities. Christchurch seems to be celebrating street art more than Wellington for the amount of large scale work being done and the dedicated events like Spectrum.
Social Woes, Wellington, 2017 (Photo Credit: Alana Frost)
Wellington’s smaller spaces would be more conducive to certain interventions, while you can see the natural fit of larger murals in Christchurch… I have always felt Wellington was a bit more varied in what you can find in the streets, that there was a wider range of approaches, would you agree? And what about the geographic lay-out, with the spread of the city, are there different scenes in different parts, like from the central city to Upper or Lower Hutt?
I think with the number of international pieces in Christchurch, as a result of the various festivals, there is a good variation of style. Although Wellington does have visiting styles too. I would say that urban art is more condensed and apparent within Wellington city. The Hutt has graffiti scenes which fluctuate, however, the buffing is relentless. Waitangi Park is the only free wall I’m aware of in the region which evolves constantly, with several abandoned spots which are also ever changing.
Mother Nature, Wellington, 2017 (Photo Credit: Alana Frost)
You are currently studying, but not in the perhaps more expected visual arts field, is it some type of engineering?
Close, I’m actually studying industrial design. It sort of sits between graphic design and engineering, which involves creating product form and understanding function. It is a four-year degree with honours and has taught me a lot about empathetic understanding and catered design. I gravitated to industrial design from graphic design partially as a result of the overwhelming number of students studying graphic design and an interest in car design. Imagining a graffiti artist with an industrial design degree also seemed like an interesting thing to do!
Haha, sorry, I was a little bit off the mark there with engineering! Is there a valuable practicality that you can draw on when painting murals?
The main thing I have taken from industrial design is a greater understanding of creating emotion through form and how subtleties can be used to express ideas. Also, my perspective sketching is getting much better and I have one semester to go. Any creative degree educates you on critiquing work and I have personally found it an experience of exiting an ignorant bliss that I began creating art from and realising a harsh balance of self-critique and confidence.
So, once you have finished, will you still compartmentalize the two; visual arts and industrial design? Or in some ways will they move closer together? Will you likely freelance as an artist and designer, or focus on one or the other?
Industrial design is a niche area to find employment and I think it takes full dedication and drive to make it happen, just like working as an artist. I can see myself designing products under my own brand, if I found an idea worth pursuing in the future. I manufactured and sold skateboards under the brand Planetary from the age of fourteen until I was seventeen. But I would say my ambition is firmly in my work as Chimp and spray paint currently.
What were you doing with the Planetary brand? Was it deck designs? Clothing? What did it encompass?
Planetary was the first brand or alias I ever worked under. I built downhill skateboard decks intended for the twisty roads of Wellington and skateboard racing. From there I started trying to produce spray paint graphics but lacked the skills. So that led to the aerosol campaign. I learnt a lot and sold quite a few boards but found selling handmade functional products to a niche market quite stressful.
What has kept you occupied since the Justice Precinct mural, and what have you got coming up? Any plans to come back to Christchurch?
I’m currently working on a t-shirt design for Kathmandu, within the same artist line that Wongi and Shraddha produced designs for. I have a new piece in Moonlight, a group show in Auckland held by The Designers Institute and RAYDAR. My piece is called Between the Raindrops. A design I submitted for the QT Museum Hotel competition was selected, so I will be painting a room or two there. I am quoting a few jobs around Wellington at the moment that I’ll be able to get onto once University is finished, and I have a handful of private commissions I need to get done!
Between the Raindrops (progress shot), Aerosol on Canvas, 2018 (Photo Credit: Alana Frost)
That’s a fair bit going on! Did the Kathmandu t-shirt opportunity come about through the Justice Precinct mural?
It sure did!
What can you tell us about the t-shirt design? Was there a specific brief to respond to?
The brief was quite open, but the key points were encouraging or capturing a sense of adventure and comparing the countries and culture of Nepal and New Zealand.
And the QT project must be pretty exciting. That involves DSide, right? What have you proposed for that?
Dside was one of the judges and I was humbled to be chosen. I put together a few different options, but you’ll have to wait and see the outcome.
You also mention the group show, do you exhibit studio pieces regularly, or is it secondary to walls?
I’ve had one solo show and been in several group and duo shows, but I get more satisfaction designing for bigger spaces that everyone gets to see. Spray paint lends itself to a large scale too. Once you’ve learnt to paint small details with a can, the larger work starts to really pop from the detail that you can fit in.
So, do you think of studio work as separate to your wall work, or does it function like preparatory work, feeding into your outdoor practice?
They are certainly intertwined. Sometimes the experiments are done on public urban walls and sometimes at smaller scale privately. Ultimately both help me learn and the more you paint both the easier it is to adapt to either.
Thanks Chimp, I know people have really responded to your Christchurch wall, so hopefully we see you again down here soon!
Keep an eye on Chimp’s work and various projects on social media:
If you have been following our interviews, you will know that we like to go in-depth, and that sometimes (okay, it is a pretty regular occurrence) we need to split our conversations into two parts. When it comes to Dcypher, that was always going to be the case. Based in Los Angeles, we not only had to make the most of the chance to catch up while he was in town, but it was also always going to be an inevitably wide-ranging discussion based on his lengthy experiences. After covering his recent projects in Christchurch and his move to Los Angeles and the necessary work to re-establish himself in a new scene in the first part of our interview, in the conclusion of Homecoming we pick up on the realities of making a living as a full-time artist in Los Angeles, being close to the emergence of ‘blockbuster’ graffiti and street art exhibitions and the responses on the streets, how he keeps an eye on the street scene in Christchurch, his experiences painting in different cities, and his plans for the future…
How do you make a full-time career as an artist in Los Angeles? Is it a mixture of jobs, or are you able to be selective about what you do?
Yeah, well I’ve always looked at myself as more of a commercial artist. As I’ve grown over time I’ve always tried to adapt to certain jobs, to find ways of making money and that kind of thing, which isn’t always a lot of people’s drive as to how to go about it. It is a tough one, it does sort of change how you’re going about things. You have to take a step back and let other influences come in and whenever you’re doing work for whoever it might be, it’s always going to differ from your own personal work to a certain extent. I mean, a lot of people have figured out how not to do that, but it’s a tough gig to stick to your own thing and that’s all your going to do, you know?
You touched on how hard it was at first to be in L.A. and to create networks, to find opportunities. Do you think that in a bigger city it is in some ways harder to at least break through, because the pool is so much larger and more competitive?
No, I think the opportunities in a bigger city are far greater, and you can kind of pigeon hole yourself a little bit. But, being an outsider also kind of helps in the fact that you can navigate and come in from a bunch of different directions, meet various people and have people approach you and that sort of thing. So, yeah, I think it has definitely opened the playing field a lot more being in a bigger city and approaching it in different ways, you know, I commend folks who can pull that off…
Mural for 88 Monks in Echo Park, Los Angeles, 2016 (Photo credit: Dcypher)
Obviously in Los Angeles there’s the longer history going back to the Latino gang graffiti, which pre-dates the graffiti that grew out of Philadelphia and New York, and then there is the emergence of hip hop graffiti and how it evolved in the area over decades, there’s the famous Saber Los Angeles River piece for example, these all give the city a significant place in the narratives of American graffiti writing culture. Recently, the city has become a setting for some organised reflection on those histories, notably the staging of the Art in the Streets show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2010, and now Roger Gastman’s new exhibition,Beyond the Streets, both of which have been pretty massive shows…
Yeah, they are huge for sure…
They both deal with broader urban art histories than just graffiti, which makes them interesting presentations, but simply in terms of their staging in Los Angeles, do you think it is as much to do with the importance of the city in these cultures, or is it more that ‘blockbusters’ are what L.A. does?
I think it’s a platform where, or it feels like it’s a platform where a lot of people can sort of come in and almost change the history in a lot of ways, and put people in a spotlight, people that might not have necessarily put in a lot of work. If you listen to the street, a lot of these guys weren’t necessarily the guys who were doing it, and there’s a lot of guys who get salty when they have been doing that shit for years and they have stayed true to the whole thing and been left out, because there are so many players in the game, you know what I mean? It comes down to how good you are at navigating the gallery thing, if that’s your M.O. There’s shit loads of guys who never get credited, who have done fucking insane amounts of shit, amazing work over the years, but have stayed underground and never really been put in the spotlight in that respect…
I was going to ask about that, what the ground level reactions were like… I remember reading that people were upset at how Art in the Streets favoured certain stories and as you say, left certain people out, so that was the feeling you were getting in Los Angeles?
Yeah, definitely. I obviously know a bunch of guys that weren’t involved but who should’ve been involved, guys who put in years and years of work. But it kind of just comes down to what groups you associate with and whether they are getting play or not. But everyone’s trying to do their own thing, and everyone’s got their own way of going about it and making their own stamp in history, some just sort of stay true to the game and keep it like, underboard, as opposed to above board…
It’s an unavoidable problem for any show of that nature. You are talking about too many diverse voices and participants to ever ‘get it right’. Also, once you start bringing in so many other influences, like the gallery worlds, and the new mainstream status of a number of urban artists, things evolve even further. Curating and condensing these histories is essentially impossible, right?
It’s always going to be the case. A famous New York graffiti writer once said: ‘Everyone has their own history of graffiti.’ No two peoples’ history of graffiti is going to be the same. To some extent, history is written by the victors, you know what I mean, so whoever is on top can kind of claim the history so to speak. Which is cool, you know, that’s part of it, but there are so many people doing their thing that there’s a million different versions of it…
In his book The History of American Graffiti, Roger Gastman recounts that he was told by someone who didn’t want to participate: ‘Anyone who tries to tell you the history of graffiti is either a liar or a fool.’ (Laughs)
I would totally agree with that.
We briefly touched on returning for Spectrum, but coming back now over the ten years you have been away, particularly post-quake, what is your take on what’s happening on the streets in Christchurch? Do you like to take a pulse of what is going on, or is it sometimes too hard to do that, especially if you come back for specific commissions that keep you occupied?
No, I always take a drive around and take some walks to old spots and stuff every time I come back to see what the next generation is doing. It’s awesome to see that people are still out there bombing and tagging, because that’s kind of like the essence of it all. And obviously with the earthquakes, it’s opened up a bunch of opportunities for both illegal stuff and legal stuff, which is cool, because I think they kind of should exist side by side to some extent. But as time goes on, it’s always something that’s going to be apparent, and there are a bunch of guys taking it very seriously which is good to see, and obviously getting away with it. (Laughs) It’s kind of something that gives the city a little bit more life, that’s the way I see it anyway…
Dcypher and Ikarus, Hereford Street, Christchurch, 2017
Following that period where the central city had a sense of freedom and there were a lot more spaces to explore, it now looks like those traditional spaces are becoming more popular again, back on the peripherals. Many of those empty buildings right in the middle of the city are slowly disappearing, but it does seem as though it has created a bit of a new energy in the writing scene with new generations. It’s interesting when you think about the different generations of Christchurch writers, and I guess you guys were maybe what, the second or third generation? If you classify it loosely…
Ahh, yeah, you are probably right there…
And now I guess there’s like another two layers or more on top of that, and its starting to build this sense of history, do you sort of feel like, even living overseas, you are seen as a something of a respected, veteran figure?
Yeah, I guess so. There’s not just myself, there’s a bunch of other people, that would be considered respected figures, but I guess I’m someone who has sort of taken it a bit further than other people would have be able to, just being in Christchurch itself. But yeah, there’s a bunch of other guys that are definitely respected figures. I do get hit up by younger generation dudes trying to paint walls and stuff, they are obviously smart enough to realise that if someone has been doing it for way longer than you have, you can learn something from them, you know what I mean? At the same time, I always try and stay humble with what I do, because I’ve been lucky enough to travel and see the amount of work that other people have put in round the world, what it really means to be revered… and being from the bottom of the world, to put yourself in that context is tricky…
New Brighton, Christchurch, 2018
Although, there are a number of New Zealand artists who are killing it, travelling the world, do you feel like there is more potential for people to be able to have that global success, to make a mark internationally rather than just locally, even while still being based here? There are multiple options now, you can move, you can stay, you can travel, you can even make a living here, there seems to be more choices than ever before…
Yeah, definitely. I think it is quite easy to get to a point where you feel that you’ve outgrown your environment to some extent, and the amount of opportunities that are available in New Zealand are still somewhat limited, and people are trying to branch out and do stuff in other countries and what have you, but at the same time you’ve got to remember where you’re from and try and bring it back full circle too…
In your case, you get to experience living in another city, and all that comes with that, including a level of home comfort, which is different to living out of a suitcase, which is the reality for a number of artists now, travelling between projects, festivals, events. I imagine that must get somewhat tiring at a certain point, although I’m sure its also an exciting way to live…
Yeah, being grounded in one place can give you a way better perspective of whatever that city might have to offer or whatever, but if you’re lucky enough to be able to travel and live out of a suitcase, that means you are doing something right…
For sure…
Even in visiting a number of cities in quick succession, you’re going to learn a shitload about being a fucking human, you know? (Laughs)
Colab with Taz Roc in Portland, 2015 (Photo credit: Dcypher)
Yeah definitely, you can’t help but be influenced by the places you paint, from the people you meet, to the physical environment, to the actual experience of travel itself, the journeys to get places, all those elements that come into it, they must all build up and inform your work…
Yeah, even being based in L.A., I still try and travel, to paint at festivals and do work across the United States. The States is a crazy place, where all the cities are so different, it’s insane. Like, you think you have Americans wrapped in a nutshell and you really don’t, you go to New Orleans, or you go to Seattle, you’re in two different countries!
What specific cities have you enjoyed painting in the most?
I mean, just painting in Los Angeles the most, makes it the most exciting place to paint. But I’ve painted in Albuquerque, Seattle, New Orleans, San Diego, and a bunch of other places, more so on the West Coast, and within the left-hand side of the United States. It’s awesome, it really gives a good perspective on that country, and again, the regional styles of all those places. But it’s somewhat interconnected as well, people are building bridges and making things happen between cities and getting influences and styles and techniques, what have you, from city to city, which is cool. Somewhere like Florida, where they have Art Basel and festivals and shit like that, is a fucking crazy place. There is a lot of crazy shit going down there. I was there painting a mural for Art Basel, and literally within like one hundred and fifty feet from where we were painting, there was a little gated neighbourhood where all sorts of crazy shit goes down. Some kid was shot at like five o’clock in the afternoon for his headphones, while one hundred and fifty feet away there’s hundreds of people painting and doing their thing and they’re not really part of that environment, but that environment still exists. There’s a lot of crazy shit going on in these tiny microcosms in the United States, it can be a dangerous place…
American Egypt wall, Los Angeles, 2016 Photo credit: Dcypher)
Living in the U.S. for almost ten years, do you feel like a Kiwi who lives in L.A., or a Los Angeleno from New Zealand?
Yeah, definitely a Kiwi who lives in LA. I’ll never renounce my ‘Kiwi-ness’! I’ve always tried to uphold the fact that I’m a New Zealander, I would never pretend to be known as an American in any way shape or form, even though I’m a citizen. The guys I paint with, the CBS guys, nicknamed me ‘Big Kiwi’, and I can never live that down, so, I would never consider myself a Los Angeleno. But a lot of people do, and it doesn’t take long for them to consider themselves Los Angelenos, even if they’ve only been living there for a couple of years, which is interesting. It’s such an amazing place where a lot of crazy, interesting things are going on…
I feel like with a place like Los Angeles, it would be easy to get swept up in the romanticism of it, and to identify with it…
People want to attach themselves to it and you will meet someone and ask: ‘Are you from L.A.?’ They’ll be ‘Yeah, totally, but I’m from Ohio originally…’
We kind of grow up with Los Angeles and New York as these iconic places, the settings for so much of our popular culture diet, that we have this expectation of them before we even visit, which might make it easier to adopt that identity when you do get there…
Yeah, I think, maybe your preconceived ideas of what a city has to offer are always wrong, like you always get to a city and it’s like: ‘Shit, this is not what I expected!’ A place like the United States is so diverse, so much crazy shit is happening constantly, it’s easy to align yourself with a certain aspect of the city, rather than a general idea of what that city sort of stands for…
Coming back relatively regularly, and maintaining that public profile through walls and projects when you do, have you ever thought about coming back and staging an exhibition in Christchurch, or actually just moving back?
Yeah, I just recently had a daughter so the idea of living in the United States for the rest of my life is sort of diminishing. You always want to have your kids experience life the same way you did to some extent, and schools and stuff in New Zealand are a little bit better than central L.A., so yeah, I definitely always considered coming back and producing work back home…
Detail of Wharenui Recreation Centre mural, Riccarton, Christchurch, 2016
You were part of the surge of graffiti culture in the early to mid-2000s, with the likes of Disruptiv, the popularity of hip hop summits, and even locally, you were part of Project Legit, and a number of other projects as well, do you kind of feel like there is a similar vibe now, albeit with this evolved concept of ‘street art’ and whatever that entails? It must feel like coming back and doing those types of things is actually achievable, not only because of the things you’ve learned in the ten years you’ve been away, but because of the environment you are coming back to as well, right?
Yeah, definitely, I think everyone here has been keeping the ball rolling, you know. When you move away you feel like nothing’s happening back home because you are so inundated with your own life…
Out of sight, out of mind…
Yeah, but every time I come back, I’m sort of floored by the amount of stuff that’s going up, different people really pushing the artform. So, I’m super stoked to be able to have that in my mind, that it is a possibility to move back and try and make something happen. Although, it is kind of daunting as well because the work opportunities in the States are far greater, whereas here you’ve got to hustle that little bit harder to try and get things going. But I feel you could, but that’s a period where you start to refine your thing and really nail it down.
Thanks for sitting down with us man, safe travels and see you back…
Yeah, cheers man…
Even though Dcypher is back stateside for now, you can keep track of what he is up to through his various online forums:
