Let’s talk about the ongoing persistence of Anti-Black racism in Ottawa’s art world. Specifically, graffiti & street art

A couple of weeks ago, local artists Kalkidan Assefa, Jimmy Baptiste, & Allan André collaborated on a mural honouring past, present & future Black resilience

While tens of thousands marched downtown Ottawa to protest police brutality and to demonstrate in unity that Black Lives Matter, these artists were working on this powerful piece.

I witnessed local musician, Nambuusi Kyeyune shooting footage w David Pistol in front of this mural

No doubt whatever Nambuusi and David put out, it will be stunning and powerful. Both exceptionally talented Ottawa artists

Barely a week after the mural was completed, another artist went down to House of Paint to film footage for a music video

This is what they found:

Despite House of Paint (Ottawa’s only legal graff wall) having tonnes of wall space, despite the existence of other walls where graffiti is turned a blind eye to, this writer chose to cover up a significant and beautiful piece that was still new and still relevant with a tag

“But Veronica, graffiti is ephemeral! It’s a free wall”

Sure. This Graf writer still made a choice to eschew etiquette and deface a BLM mural instead of throwing up his tag over something older. There’s an obvious disparity in the skill between the tag and the mural it covers.

The visible lack of can control and the poor filling in the tag emphasize how thoughtless the act of covering this mural is.

The writer, who goes by reces got called out hard on instagram. He was given the space to say he f’d up or didn’t know, but he doubled down.

Reces, whose real name i know but won’t share, is most definitely a white kid. He deleted all comments on his post and then threw down some racist and transphobic slurs for good measure. They have since been deleted as well.

This gives me big 2015 vibes. In the summer of 2015, Ottawa artists Allan André and Kalkidan Assefa put up a mural honouring Sandra Bland at Tech Wall, and Kalkidan put up a Black Trans Lives Matter mural on Somerset at Bank. Both of these murals were defaced w “all lives matter”

White graf writers in Ottawa tried to claim that the Sandra Bland mural was disrespectful due to the quality of the work (what?) and pretty much because they’re territorial babies who don’t want to share & don’t care about issues that don’t affect them https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/laurenstrapagiel/a-sandra-bland-memorial-in-ottawa-was-defaced-just-hours-aft

Over on Somerset there was less emphasis for making excuses for racism. A back and forth on the wall with vague threats and persistent silencing of Black artists took place over a number of days. Police would monitor and stop Black and PoC people who were trying to save the wall.

How do I know?

I. Was. There.

My melanin-deficient ass was carrying the spray paint on a couple of those nights and being present to try and lend a safety net of whiteness against police and local racists https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3371181

Eventually Kalkidan painted a new mural honouring murdered Black trans women. This mural was put up high on the back of McNabb rec centre, where it can’t be reached by entitled white kids with spray cans. The mural overlooks McNabb park. It’s visible from Gladstone ave.

What’s the point of all this?

I wish I had a concrete answer here. I’m upset over the double standard in the graf scene. The white guys who didn’t want the Sandra Bland mural bc of “poor quality” have done nothing to collect their boy who tagged the new piece with his trash tag

The commercial gallery scene is white-dominated and the graffiti and street art scenes are gatekeeping Black artists

Profoundly talented Black artists and disproportionately tagged over vs white peers of similar or lesser level of skill.

The issue is so much bigger than holding this reces kid to account. It is well past time to PROTECT AND AMPLIFY BLACK VOICES. In Ottawa this means we don’t sit idly by in the face of injustice, be that police brutality, underrepresentation at music festivals, or arts gatekeeping

Please check out the artists I’ve mentioned in this thread. they are only a few of Ottawa’s finest artists and members of the Black community

Kalkidan Assefa / Drippin Soul
Jimmy Baptiste
Allan “art life” André
David D Pistol Photography
Nambuusi Kyeyune (fka Rita Carter

I know it’s exhausting but we need to keep reasoning with our cousins and neighbours and that guy from high school who likes your 6 yr old ig photos at 2am on weeknights. We have a responsibility to make these people cut out the all lives matter crap. Complacency is complicity