The Identity

I am just finally putting down some thoughts I had after the vacation and partly spurned on by the DJ Spooky seminar.

While I was in Norway for the holiday I was staying right down town, and in a place that I have romanticized for it's traditional values, strong bond to nature, and their progressive government I was disturbed by the amount of graffiti, and not really graffiti but tags - EVERYWHERE. The trains look terrible, my girlfriends doorway had just been tagged, the buildings, benches, signs... nothing is safe. So my initial reaction was that a bunch of stupid kids are getting their jollies by defacing a city, a place that they ought to have some pride in. There was no graffiti on the trains in London, and people not would make big ugly tags on business windows in downtown Bellingham. So, why is this happening all over Oslo? I appreciate art but this is not expression...

But I thought about this, and when I was watchig the DJ Spooky video he opens with a description of the emergence of art and hip hop and his experiences in this emerging culture. The point is made that for a ignored and underpriveleged community, graffiti is a voice. It is the act of remaking the surrounding to reflect the people that reside in NYC.

So here some background may be necessary - Oslo, the capital of Norway, has been experiencing a tremendous influx in immigration. The identity of the city is changing. Norwegians are worried that the Norwegian language may soon become obsolete, because of all the various dialects and a decreasing native population (that is birth rates in Norway are decreasing except amongst immigrant populations). The city of Oslo is a metropolitan area and like it or not, the population is diverse, and no longer filled with blonde haired blue eyed businessmen. The population of Pakistani,Moraccon, and other minorities are not to be ignored. They have as much of a stake in the city's identity as any other. But when their surroundings do not relect the people who make up its inhabitants, they are going to force change. In this case, youth are claiming their parts, it may be a handrail, or a garbage can, but like everyone these people need to feel that Oslo is their home. Without destroying what exists they are adapting and compromising between what exists in their surrounding and within themselves. They speak the language, buy into the styles, and participate in a culture that must also flex to the changing times.

It is not new, and it may not impress me on an artistic level, but I understand the need to "make yourself at home". I ask how I have claimed my surroundings. The rocks climbing areas in which I feel some sense of posession, my office, and my hangouts. These places give me comfort and a sense of place that can be a shelter and provide needed peace from all the stresses of a foriegn place. It takes only a little thing to make a place familiar and welcoming, and when I see "defaced" property I try instead to realize it is "facelifted" and in the dynamic times we live, there is little room for my romantic ideas of how things should be. Perhaps it would be more productive to see how things are, and romanticize how they could be. To make these places comfortable and welcoming, and to give people a place.