Graffiti and signage

Where to start? In this densely built-up environment, there is visual communication, in the form of writing or pictures, everywhere. Recently I read the book: “Characters: Cultural stories revealed through typography” by Stephen Banham, who I believe is also a Brunswick resident. (There is a great article on the book and part of an interview at this link to TheDesign Files blog.) Reading Banham’s book and admiring the photographs reinforced my view that it is not only what is written, but how it is written, that is fascinating and revelatory.

Often, the revelations are just in the eye of the beholder. Where one finds a scribble, a sign. What one has been thinking about, what one is looking for. Here are some examples:

Bohemian Brunswick: of course it did not take me long to discover this piece of commissioned graffiti art in a laneway along Sydney Road.
It has been portrayed on a number of other blogs. My interest in it is self-evident, and I was not disappointed. I like the psychedelic feel to the lettering, and human figures depict Sydney Road archetypes. There is a touch of Dali or Bunuel in the floating eyeball. God is eating a souvlaki.  Further down the same alleyway, which leads to a most banal asphalt carpark behind an as-yet un-Woolworthed Safeway supermarket, there is less official, more messy yet extremely artistic graffiti. Go and czech it out.  (Also I love the gorgeous old Art Deco garage or workshop, tucked behind the front row of buildings. What is it used for now? Who owns it, and how long will it survive? But more of that in a future post, I hope.)

The subject of graffiti is indeed an endless one but the other example I would like to show here is the very plain, white scribble on a fence in a small street not far from where I live. On a corrugated iron fence, between old, worn out tags and messages. It just states: “corrugated iron”.

Vince calls it post-modern self-referential. I just love it because it reminds me of a cartoon which appeared years if not decades ago in the literary pages of the Age, describing the lot of the female author. Standing at her ironing board, writing with her left hand and ironing with her right, the fabric morphing into the manuscript, or the other way around.  I called it “self-irony”.

Posters and anarchic advertising are another feature of the streetscape. Gigs, garage sales and grand ideas are all taped to the power poles, walls and boardings of Brunswick. Of the thousands that make me think, wonder, here is one of the best:  the Afghani MP Malalai Joya, one of the bravest women around, superimposed on a stereotypical  poster of a supposedly independent, liberated  Western woman.  But we will never be free while our sisters are hounded for daring to speak the truth. Hearing Malalai Joya speak at a gathering in Berwick a couple of years ago, was an unforgettable experience. Her passion and conviction are something we cannot understand, but must try to. Whoever taped the poster onto the wall of the Gladholme Hotel on Sydney Road, probably knew that, and probably had a sense of irony.