Turin’s stunning street graffiti of defiance

Hassan A Karofi, who was in Turin, Italy

Graffiti is outlawed in the Italian city of Turin but the vigour with which the youths have splashed walls, wastebins, bus stations, and every available space on the streets paints Turin defiance.

Graffiti is an art of expression of inner feelings; a way of communication that tells and expresses a message that would not easily or understandably be passed across through the use of normal communication patterns. Spraycan methods are used to depict coded messages understood mainly by practitioners. Sometimes visible in meaning, many times shrouded in coded meanings only known by few. Its beauty, even though sometimes offensive still provides a distinctive sight illuminating cities in across Europe. Artists, civil activists, community workers, but in many instances, defiant youths use the graffiti as a means of showing their abhorrence of law and order, their message of disconnect with authorities.

Although its origin dates back to ancient Rome where images were drawn on paths to express opinions, modern graffiti however, could be traced to the United States of America, (USA). The style of urban graffiti that most people know about, originated from New York City in the late 1960s.

Spraycans were used as tools to represent inner feelings on objects, mostly walls, abandoned cars, or on train stations and subways.

It is reported that an American train messenger known as Taki 183 who lived on 183rd street in Washington Heights, moved around delivering messages from the stations. While he did so, he would use a marker and write his name wherever he went, at subway stations and also the insides and outsides of subway cars. Eventually, he became known all throughout the city as this mysterious figure. In 1971, he was interviewed by the New York Times. And since then, American youngsters from all over New York, realizing the fame and notoriety that could be gained from “tagging” their names on subway cars began to emulate Taki 183. Soon, it became a fierce competition for the youngsters to have their names in as many places as possible, as the more graffitis you have, the more famous you become, the amount of graffiti on trains across US cities soon exploded. Art was to become a global phenomenon replicated everywhere, especially the youth to express their opinions, feelings, either just about their artistry or opinion on government policies.

In Turin, like in many other cities around Italy, the phenomenon is so outstanding that nowhere is spared from this nuisance art; shops, pathways, substations, dustbins, buildings, signage and billboards as well as on trains, buses and on lanes. Although public graffiti is outlawed by the city of Turin, youths defied this laws as they littered every nook and cranny of the city with various colourful depiction of their artistic talents.

My guide in Turin, who is also a hotel attendant at the Art Hotel, Guala Lady Jane informed me that although the arts could be seen everywhere and with no official efforts to remove them, the fact remains it is illegal and against the Guala council rules on sanitation and illegal painting.

She said that youths usually depict their arts in the middle of night when most residents were asleep. Although Turin never sleeps, movement reduce at night. The sun falls at 10pm and rises at 4.30am, a five and half hours darkness only yet the rampaging young and defiant artists make use of the limited time for night sleep to showcase their mastery of the outlawed art.

“Police sometimes make arrests and charge recalcitrant youths who deface public and even private buildings in the name of arts, the youths never stop painting,” she said. Jane added that to make matters even worse, the youths never discriminate where to spray their can inks. ‘ You could see nowhere is spared. Roads, walls, all public places, even private homes, dustbins, shop windows and public toilets have become platforms; have been turned into galleries showcasing an environmental assault regarded as art by the youths.” She further explained.

The graffiti gurus see themselves as artists working to promote a culture of skill and spray can paint; they also use the methods to express their personal, political and communal opinion about a law, an issue or to just express love for their friends, football teams and heroes. To them, the graffiti is an art, a way of life, a medium of communication; telling their stories and of their loves and cities.

Goerge Chukuma, a Nigerian from Enugu who is currently living in Turin on a transit to Sweden informed Sunday Trust that there is no class of those engaged in the outlawed arts. According to him, youths roaming in the night find the quietness of darkness and almost absent movement of people and law enforcement agents as conducive for their trades. “You can see them competing, mostly in the night, they have territories, each controlling a particular area of influence where the art is carried out as a contest” he said.

Chukuma added various groups operate within limits in areas of control and they respect each other’s territories as each area brags about the superiority of their graffiti during debates and on drinking tables in restaurants and bars.

observed that bars, restaurants littered around Turin neighborhoods are where youths gather in groups discussing issues and taking coffee and intoxicants, many of them dressed in fashionable designers conveying tattoos and colorful hairstyles, the type you see in Hollywood movies. Although Turin is not a city of many youths, yet these group of youngsters are very visible and vocal. Almost everyone smokes cigarettes, in Turin smoking is second to graffiti, none is more visible than the other. Perhaps it might be the reason why Turin is the dirtiest city I have ever seen in Europe.