Green Graffiti: Is it illegal?
Coney Island Deer Trophy | Source: mosstika.com
Metro Moss in New York, 2008 | Source: mosstika.com
There has been much debate surrounding the idea of graffiti art. For some, it is blatant disregard for our cityscapes, and for those with a more acute aesthetic eye, it is a form expression that serves a greater social purpose. Guerrilla artists have found firm footing in mainstream culture, more notably Banksy, who notoriously used stencil art and life-size sculptures to project social commentaries in London’s public spaces. But what happens when you throw in an environmentally-driven motive into the mix? Is it still illegal if it is ‘green’ graffiti?
I came across Mosstika Urban Greenery, an eco-minded collective based in New York City, dedicated to creating innovative ways of merging art and nature within our urban centers. Upon further reading, I found myself forming a rather favourable view of the burgeoning ‘green’ graffiti movement. Founder Edina Tokodi, whose public art installations are firmly rooted in green guerrilla tactics, is very much a forerunner for sustainable art expression; as she goes on to explain:
“I think that our distance from nature is already a cliché. City dwellers often have no relationship with animals or greenery. As a public artist I feel a sense of duty to draw attention to deficiencies in our everyday life”
And that she does. Her moss installations offer a fresh perspective, adding colour and life to our otherwise mundane city surfaces. Tokodi’s quirky moss patches, easily spotted around the streets of Brooklyn, characteristically take upon animal-inspired shapes. She uses the city as her canvas, painting atop barren construction walls and telephone booths to create these mini green sanctuaries in the most unexpected places. And does so quite brilliantly too, I might add.
'Grass What?' in Brooklyn | Source: mosstika.com
Similarly to Tokodi’s Mosstika Urban Greenery, London-based environmental artist Anna Garforth takes upon similar values of sustainability. Her first moss art project, Sporeborne, incorporates typography art with urban ecology in a delightful eco-project that uses only natural and organic materials. Moss paint, a viable alternative to toxic paints or sprays, present a more sustainable means of creating art, one which has been adopted by many green graffiti artists.
The installation cites a sentence from Eleanor Steven's poem, and represents the winds of change, moisture and potential | Source: Anna Garforth http://crosshatchling.co.uk
'Sporeborne' | Source: Anna Garforth http://crosshatchling.co.uk
With the works of Garforth and Tokodi in mind, there is a glaring difference between graffiti and guerrilla gardening initiatives, as highlighted above. Graffiti, for one, has been criticized for depreciating and devaluing urban landscapes, where else, ‘green’ graffiti forges a strong connection between the urban neighborhood and nature. It does not deface public property, and therefore, should not be classified as illegal art in any shape or form.
Editor’s Note:
If you liked this, check out: Patrick Blanc: Converting Our City Walls into Vertical Gardens
