Raffaella Delle Donne - graffiti

Raffaella Delle Donne is an amazing writer and activist that contributed the Faith47 feature to Juxtapoz current special African Art (November 2008) issue. Raffaella currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa and recently wrote about her experience of being charged with defacing public property for spraying “free art” on the bridges of “the Mother City.” It’s pretty crazy stuff. Raffaella explains:
“A couple of years ago, in protest against the barrage of proposed by-laws that boasted a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to all our social ills by banning everything from graffiti to the homeless, a friend and I were charged with defacing public property for spraying ‘free art’ on the bridges of the Mother City.
“Because we were middle-class whities and upstanding members of the community, our little escapade got lots of media attention (isn’t graffiti code language for gangsters?) and fuelled the debate around the shortsightedness of Draconian laws that threatened to turn two already marginalized groups into criminals: the youth and the poor.”
The entire piece is enthralling, and provides a much-needed look at foreign government’s policies on graffiti and street art. If the up cropping of zero tolerance laws frustrates you, you’re not the only one. “Our protest wasn’t just about graffiti, we were demanding to know why our leaders aren’t providing viable, long-term solutions to uplift the communities that need it most.”
Read Raffaella’s Selling(Out) the Revolution on her blog at mouth-of-word.blogspot.com
Image from Raffaella’s blog courtesy Adbusters.