1.  Graffiti illegal, Trash bags, Culture Changing

2. I choose graffiti as my issue. Graffiti is a street art, which you can see everywhere in east village, but in law, graffiti is illegal. Government will erase it in a certain time. But I think it is a good art, so I want to bring graffiti to more people’s life to get the public’s attention to protect it or make it legal. I can wear it to the street to let people feel how I bring the graffiti into people’s life instead of being on the wall.

3.  three black and white design sketches

4&5.mood board and color palette

6&7.  fabric research and three color design sketches

8. work in progress photos of prototype

9.

photos of prototype on mannequin(front, back, side)

10.https://youtu.be/uizhpDsl7Nc

11.

12.

Graffiti in East Village

East Village is a specific area in downtown Manhattan, in this area artists paint on the wall, mailbox and street. This is called graffiti, modern graffiti originally started in Bronx, upper side of NYC. In some blocks, graffiti are very awesome, very impressive, people would like to take a selfie in front of the graffiti. But on the other side, there are also some very offensive words or images on the street, which is also called graffiti. Based on people’s experience of walking in east village, they do love beautiful graffiti. Even though people love beautiful graffiti, it is still illegal in NYC, government hires some people to erase the graffiti. Meanwhile, the public do love it, should the government makes it legal? How’s that affect people’s life?

Ancient graffiti started thousands of years ago, ancestors used carbon rod to record how many animals they hunted that day on the wall in the cave. Morden graffiti started from Philadelphia in about 1950s. In the 1960s, Bronx people started to paint on the street wall, and painting on street wall became really popular in NYC. Originally, they used the painting to identify different gang groups. Later on, poor but talented artists found thousands of free painting board, which were the walls on street. A new way of artistic expression bloomed in Bronx and spread to every corner of the world. Almost every big city can see a view of graffiti. Only in 50 years, graffiti became so popular, that is such a miracle.

Poor talented artists are always poor. Because the government thought graffiti was destroying or damaging property. So graffiti became illegal in a lot of city, also in NYC. If anyone get caught doing graffiti can be arrested and prosecuted under the City and State Anti-Graffiti Legislation. That law is very strict, meanwhile the government also has a specific anti-graffiti group to clean the walls for NYC. They also set four different level of damage other people’s property.

What is the most basic function of government? The most basic job government do is keeping the city safe. Is there any conflict between graffiti and government’s basic function? As mentioned, graffiti is the symbol of street gang. Gang graffiti present means that in this area there is a specific gang group. Usually, the meaning of gang graffiti contains about gang territory, declaration of alliances, advertisement of gang power and warning of violence. Based on historical reason, graffiti influences the basic function of government. Meanwhile, graffiti is very close to people’s daily life, because people saw it everywhere in the city. It can bring a lot of message to the public. Sometimes, public can be treated easily. For example, if any one use Freddie Gray as a background to do a graffiti in east village. Every people saw the back meaning of the graffiti, people can become very violent. Probably, what happened in Baltimore would happen in NYC. In this case, that reason might be the primary reason why government makes it illegal.

It is actually happening in LA, a fight between government and graffiti artists. Government wants to erase all the graffiti, so they spend 30 million dollars to clean the graffiti on the street. On the other side, graffiti artists stand out to fight against the government. Since a lot of graffiti artists have gangs background, usually they will pick very violently way to deal with government. Some people die for it. The fight between California Government and graffiti artists will become more serious.

But there is a difference between gang graffiti and graffiti. Gang graffiti artists work for that specific gang. Graffiti artists work for themselves, such as Banksy. Gang graffiti will give the neighborhood violent influence, the entire area and inhabitants will become the targets for violence. Gang graffiti should be illegal.

Government thinks graffiti is illegal, but it is still should be counted as art. It has a lot of different ways to do graffiti, such as Bomb, which is finishing the whole street in a short time. Wild Style is a very messy crazy graffiti style. Generally, graffiti art already built a system for it. They hunt at night in the city, finish work in a short time, next day shock the public. People might like this kind of shock, people might hate this kind of shock. But it is still a question that is it should be legal?

There is always a serious result happening, if nobody controls how it birth and death. If government doesn’t limit the amount of graffiti and lack them in certain area, the whole city will become graffiti building. It is something I can’t imagine, it can’t happen.

In east village, it is a paradise of artists. So the people who lived in east village all have an artistic soul. Based on the interview of what is the reaction of public towards graffiti, most people said they love beautiful, excellent graffiti. They don’t like offensive and ugly graffiti. That is the normal thing that people adore beautiful things. But different people have different opinions to “how do you think about government hire people to erase graffiti?”. A cafe’s worker answered that government should do it, if government didn’t do it, our city probably would be full of graffiti. A young lady had a more interesting idea, she said that it should be the rule of graffiti, it was just like a game. The good one survived, the bad one got erased.

Also on Internet, there was a research about graffiti, there were 80% of the public loving graffiti, because it is awesome and cool. Only 20% of the public said they didn’t like graffiti at all. they think it destroyed the beauty of city.

How many things will change if it becomes legal? In UK, government will give some free walls to graffiti artists, so they can spray on the free walls without being illegal. But meanwhile, just as the interviewed lady said it is kind of graffiti’s nature. That groups do things in that way, if the balance breaks, what will happen? Graffiti artists might lose their passion to the graffiti, graffiti might step out of the historical stage. It might become extinct, in the future, people only can see it on books or forget.

Each graffiti artist should have a tough spine or very strong soul to support them to do graffiti with risk. For each graffiti, artist need to do a lot of prepare for it. That makes a graffiti become perfect. Probably, the painting is not perfect, but the entire processing is art, it makes it perfect. But if graffiti becomes legal, does graffiti artist still have the passion to do it overnight? It is like a two countries’ fight, if one side surrenders first. It is also the end of the war. As time goes by, probably people will forget the meaning of doing graffiti over night.

As mentioned before, there are about 80% of people like graffiti, only 20% of the population don’t like graffiti. But why? Based on the interview, people also don’t like offensive graffiti. Majority of the public don’t care about which wall graffiti artist chooses, because that wall doesn’t belong to them. Even sometimes graffiti really messes up some walls, people still doesn’t really care. The only opinion people have is that the graffiti on that wall looks cool, I like it. No body have the idea of erasing it.

However, the majority of the public want it to be legal. NYC can do what UK did, gives some free walls to let graffiti artists to paint on it. Also the rules could be strict, only the graffiti artists have the graffiti license can paint on free wall. Otherwise, professional graffiti work might get destroyed by others.

Or the government can help graffiti artists to set a new standard system. On the license, artists will have different ranking. From low to high, they can use different size of free walls in certain area. Each graffiti work must have a specific signature to identified the work. So the anti-graffiti can be the judger of this game. It is pretty good to control too much graffiti, at the same time, it is also a good way to pull graffiti artists’ attention or sense of competition to the graffiti fight. So graffiti art could keep the vigor of youth.

Graffiti do bother some people’s life, but it doesn’t bother the majority’s life. Graffiti is also a good channel between artists and public to communicate. To pull public’s attention to something, graffiti is the best way to catch people’s eyes, because it is so close to life. Always banning graffiti is not a easy way to solve problem, it wastes time and money. The best way is to leading it. So it is very possible to make the bad things become better and better, which could create more possibility to the city. Graffiti is not the worst thing in the city, graffiti is a wild art, it is so influential to the neighborhood, it should be legal in a right way.

After the long research, because graffiti is too close to gang violence, drug and death. It is a bomb, which could explode anytime. So government is worried about what it can bring to the public. But it is still can’t solve the problem that graffiti bringing. The public need to have a right attitude to gang culture and graffiti, they need to figure out what is right, what is wrong. Meanwhile, government should release graffiti, government has the real enemy, which is not graffiti, it is gang violence.