by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

Tag terrors, burner bandits and roller rascals rejoice. Graffiti’s getting props, not busted chops, in town this summer, and the government’s footing the bill.

Lou Piensa, local hip hop MC and organizer, is the Montreal link in the terminus1525 project, an elaborate Canada Council concoction for young Canadian artists that involves both hands-on activities in each major city and a virtual forum on its Web site.

Part of Piensa’s package for terminus1525 focuses on graffiti, to which end he’s enlisted Turf One and Hest, two can commandos from France currently making Montreal their home. Their aim is to “express part of our vision of hip hop,” says Piensa, “which sees this culture as mature, expressive and driven by a message.” That message comes across in two separate projects, a mural series and graf workshops for teens.

Plateau residents may already have spotted, at St-Dominique and Napoléon, the first wall in their 8 Steps to � series of murals based on a poem of Piensa’s (on walls graciously donated by the proprietors). “We agreed that we wanted to have a positive message, but not just life-is-beautiful, everything’s-great type stuff. So we all agreed upon the concept of making something out of nothing, which at the same time we feel is the basis of hip hop.”

Brainstorming sessions involved exploring symbolism from around the world and through the ages, mandalas, alchemy and assorted arcana. “Finally we tried to pin down an ultimate message—no matter what difficulties one encounters, one has the capacity to turn the negative into positive.”

Schooled in the tools

The other side of the project is a series of workshops at youth centres around town, intensive three-day sessions that school small groups of kids 13 to 18 in the history, techniques and possibilities of the artform. The end results will be up for show on the terminus Web site. Having already conducted such workshops back home in France, Turf One and Hest took the gig on with gusto.

“We’re doing the workshops because we wanted to give something,” says Hest, “not just take. We wanted to share with kids—there’s an artistic side to what we’re doing, but also a social side.”

The pair intend to neither encourage nor discourage the illegal side of graf, but rather show the kids what they themselves can do, be it in graf or any other creative endeavour.

“We’re not social workers or judges,” adds Turf One. “We’re just bringing our knowledge of the medium, which is a bridge to other means of expression—computer graphics, comics, whatever. In the end, it’s a creative medium. The concept isn’t the act of degrading someone’s property. It’s taking a surface and creating something new, giving the kids that means to realize that they can use these same tools of destruction to create something that’s their own.”

Booked!

Meanwhile All City, the new graf book assembled by Paul 107 (photographer, editor in chief of Pound and Under Pressure, and founder of Sekondhand Projects), takes a pass on the nobler aspects of graffiti and focuses on the vandalism. While the book, from ECW Press, isn’t part of terminus1525, the connection is there in Turf One’s assistance.

“Graffiti is always glamourized, there’s this fantasy surrounding it,” says Paul 107. “Thing is, it isn’t always so glamorous. People you think are high on the hog are, 20 years later, regretting what they’ve done. For some, it’s a springboard to other projects, but for others, it’s dragged them down. There are different sides to it.

The book’s first part lays out the tricks of the trade, from materials to proper etiquette when busted. The second part is interviews with several generations of graf “writers” from New York, San Francisco, Paris and Montreal. This is the real meat for Paul 107, who saw a lack of substantial and informed interviews in graffiti magazines. While the images in the book may be inspiring, tales of legal hassles—and frank consideration of graffiti as an addiction, not an artform—are bound to have a few eager-beaver taggers thinking twice. Neither pro nor con, the book simply aims to tell it like it is. “It’s not something that should be promoted, but it needs to be explored. If you don’t understand something, you’re scared of it.”

All City book launch and All Souled Out art exhibit at Alena MTL (5662 Sherbrooke W.) on Friday, June 13, 6:30pm. More info on 8 Steps to � and the graf workshops at www.terminus1525.ca

>> Arts Listings