Aberdeen, A Tale of Two Cities in LockDown!

I'm sure many are feeling the exhausting and utter nauseating effects of the Covid 19 lock down as we wait to see what the next hurdle will be. With a Government almost taking pride in how badly they've mismanaged the situation, initial fears of the pandemic being dragged out appear to be coming to fruition. Other countries are quick to return to a good level of normality while the UK media look for any excuse to avoid covering the UK death toll which is almost the worst in the World, despite us only accounting for a small part of the world population. But as is often the way, just like social media where you can scroll through videos of people being murdred by police followed by cute cat videos, I'm going to jump from berating the Tory party and focus on some creative adventures from the lock down.

The majority of this post was written a few days after heading out with V2k for an evening of street art with me helping to document his process. As I've often said, I find art is a great way to try and make sense of an often senseless world and if ever we needed to focus its now! With the Black Lives Matter movement creating bridges like never before and a sense that change could be coming, artist's like V2k are important and seeing the impact of interventions by BLM protestors in Aberdeen has only affirmed my own ideas about the importance to street art. I'll be looking at this in a bit more detail in another post soon. In the mean time, here's what went down at the tail end of April...

A few weeks into the UK's lockdown I recieved a message about doing some paste ups during what would have been the 4th Nuart Aberdeen festival weekend. I jumped at the chance to help! Behind the scenes the team hadbeen working with some of this years artists to get posters printed and delivered to Aberdeen in time so we could blast them up. A small gesture on the part of Nuart to mark the postponed festival but also to give something back to the city has been so welcoming. Up til this point apart from the occassional days at the office I hadn't really ventured further than the lush green parks around the corner from my flat or to our studio which is also close by. To have these spaces, to have a back garden and no financial worries makes me incredibly lucky. It's important to be thankful.

Having worked with Dr.D a few years back during Nuart Aberdeen and Iain Strange in Stavanger for Nuart Festival, I’d learned a few tricks for putting up large scale paste ups and knew that I’d need some help. I messaged festival helper and friend Vlad, knowing that he’s always keen to be involved along with Martin and Willem. I wanted to minimise the risk during our excursions so we’d work in teams of 2 with Willem helping to document the paste ups from a distance. With the paste ups due to arrive on the Friday I began gathering materials and thinking about locations. Then V2k sent a text asking if I’d be keen to help him with some new stencils he wanted to put up. With the streets being so quiet it seemed like the perfect time to carry out some street art interventions and so I set off on my bike, armed with a video camera and a face mask.

An evening of street art seemed like the perfect antidote to the sterile days spent at home watching the news unfold, death tolls on the rise while politicians clap for the health system they’ve spent a decade dismantling. But the streets have always provided a canvas to express ideas and to form alternative narratives than those pushed by the mainstream media and Vlad has always had a way of expressing his ideas that’s unique. I set off on my bike and was taken aback by how quiet the streets were, a literal ghost town apart from the occasional tracksuited figure and police cars. The police seemed to be out in force despite the lack of activity but this also meant that cars and potential problems were more visible.

Our first stop took us to an old bridge in Tillydrone where V had created a text piece that questions the rich poor divide in the area. Apparently residents in the executive village located across from the council housing and high rises had been offered money to repair one of the connecting bridges which funnels people right past their executive homes but had refused the offer. Although there’s another 2 bridges to help residents get across the river, the closed bridge is undoubtedly the most useful. We got to our first spot and Vlad began unrolling his stencils and got to work clearing moss off the wall. I felt strangely on edge. Less so for being caught spray painting walls illegally but more for the fact we were out together. But as the letters slowly took shape and spray cans rattled off into the shadows, I felt privileged to be seeing V2k at work. Seeing others creativity and ideas has always given me a kick and V2ks work always poses some interesting questions.

After a quick pit stop we headed up to the Spital to repaint some text which had been buffed off. This time the streets were a little busier with suspected drug dealers dropping off their wares while gangs of Russian youths roamed the streets blasting their eurotrance. Gangs sounds quite mencacing, perhaps they were bored student's who just needed to get out and explore like ourselves at 1am on a Friday morning. After some ducking and diving V finally managed to repaint his original text to go with the face scarf wearing stencil, looking like a member of some student antifa group. We wondered why the figure was lept but the text had been removed? Perhaps they ran out of cleaning materials. Either way they'd be in for a suprise when they realise the text has reappeared with it declaration 'Photonic creatures here to stay'. After all, isn't life just a series of holograms?

With two done and two to go we packed up and headed for Leslie Terrace, a location that has been on Vs radar for months but due to the busy nature of the intersection it seemed impossible to paint without getting busted. Of course the lock down presented the perfect opprtunity to have a go. With the roads quiet and a clearer view of the surrounding streets, V began to unfurl his Victorian boy stencil. The chosen wall proved problematic as it sucked up quite a lot of the base coat paint requiring a few sprays to get the strong white backdrop. As the next layer went on we heard loud music getting closer. Two young guys appeared across the road and sprayed something on an electrical box. My phone was hideen in the bushes right next to them filming V at work. They didn't notice and crossed over adjacent to where V was working and sprayed something else on the same wall. As they walked off police cars started rolling past, thankfully missing us as we crouched at the side of the street. V finished up his piece and we started to pack up our gear just as another police car rolled past and did a 180 having clocked us.

The car slowly pulled up alongside us as spray cans and stencils lay strewn on the road. "What are you guys up to tonight?" the officer asked. Being Vs mission I left him to answer and hoping he'd have a good story for them. "Oh were just doing some art projetcs" he said, at 2am. " I see, are you spraying up those stencils" he asked. I could see V start to think before quickly replying "Oh yeah, we're making some night art". Night art he asked "never heard of it, whats that?". After making a good pitch about holding up stencils to the lights and doing photographs the officer looked at us confused and said he thought we might be tampering with the gas box next to our bags but he seemed satisfied we weren't up to anything salacious and left us to pack up. He didn't notice the stencilled wall just to the left of his car.

It seemed like we we're off the hook and quickly gathered our stuff before some other late night lurkers got into a fight next to us about a pitbull not being on a lead as another dog owner tried to get past. A girl on a bike screamed to her friend to restrain the dog as it salivated and barked. A verbal arguement was followed by more insults before they finally walked off. They turned their attention to us and started demanding we write their names while I looked at their fresh scabed up faces, probably from fighting. We decided to split and call it a night before anything else happened. It was only as we got round the corner we saw what our frieds had sprayed. "Fuck the NHS cunts" had been scrawled round from Vs piece while across the road "GABBA" had appeared on the green box. I decided to go back the next day and spray it out. I started to think about why they'd write something so shitty during a time where so many are celebrating the vital work being done by NHS staff. All I could come up with is that some people need to rebel, even against their own intrests. As Alfred says in the Batman Dark Knight film, some men just want to watch the world burn Master Wayne.

The photos and video of this part of our evening feel quite important. Seeing V2k painting his piece on the right, questioning those in power who take and act in their own self intrest, whether its selling off parts of the NHS for profit or clearing out loo roll and baby milk in Sainsbury, curroptable power and priveladge is being challenged through the creation of art works. The flip side is someone with his long trench coat deciding the only thing he can do is write 'fuck the NHS' on the same wall, literally meters away. Art vs vandalism, informed activism vs uninformed action or ideas vs idiots? Either way it left me feeling pissed off, almost like seeing an online troll torpedo threads on facebook but played out on walls with spray paint. Fuck that guy, his mate and his stupid trenchcoat.

As we headed off V2k spoke about his final spot just as another police car pulled into the street we'd just left. I think we'd pushed our luck enough for one evening and both decided to call it a night. The next day I zoomed around to get some more day time shots of the previous nights art works and covered up the NHS graffiti. We'd had word about helping out with a new project for Nuart Festival which required some large scale paste ups to be installed around the city. Our street art adventures would continue but ill save those stories for another post.

Thanks to V2k for getting me along to help and for pushing out his idea's on the streets.