Street artists lend a hand

TASWATER’S Bellerive reservoir will undergo a major makeover this weekend with vibrant street art to be sprayed onto its face by a team of young artists.

Today and tomorrow, about 10 local youths aged 17-21 will take up their spray cans to cover the 220 square metre concrete wall with their art.

The pilot program has so far seen TasWater team up with the Clarence City Council to beautify reservoirs at Rokeby and Mornington.

TasWater facilities officer Rachaelle Downey said the aim of the project was to cover and remove unsightly and offensive graffiti and thereby improve the security of the company’s assets.

“We are giving youth the opportunity to do what they love to do in a safe and legal space,” she said.

Ms Downey said all of reservoirs she has come across have had some form of graffiti on them.

“Some of the stuff that’s on there is quite offensive, so members of the public tend to complain,” she said.

“A general thought in the community is that they feel less safe when there is graffiti on sites, and we don’t want community members to feel unsafe.”

Ms Downey said the community was really loving what they have done so far.

“We have found that doing it as an art piece, the youth still get to do their individual pieces in an individual style, but we tie it together with a common theme,” she said.

“I think it’s something that we’d like to roll out further, as long as the community gets behind us and agree that it looks good and it is a better outcome for everyone.”

The experience of the council, backed up by research, shows that if young people have sanctioned spaces to carry out their street art, other spaces are left alone.

They have also found that projects such as this, when completed, are rarely targeted and overlaid by random graffiti, with the artist’s effort respected.

“A couple of the artists have a bit of a past with illegally graffitiing sites, which they have now said to me they have stopped because they have been given this opportunity to paint legally on a regular basis,” Ms Downey said.

She said she was “absolutely blown away” to see what the young artists have been able to do.

“Three of the participants are at Uni now studying art, so this is a good opportunity for them to build on their skills,” Ms Downey said.

The initiative is one of the ways TasWater hopes to foster positive relationships with the community.

“We would love people to come and watch,” Ms Downey said.

“This reservoir is right on the street, so it’s a really good vantage point for people to be able to come and have a look and see what we’re doing.”

The Clarence City Council has organised a sausage sizzle on site from 11.30am tomorrow (Sunday) in support of the youth group Young Life. The reservoir is on the corner of Waverley and Ormond streets at Bellerive.