It’s common to see graffiti across the walls of Gaborone homes or other properties.
The graffiti often spoils the appearances of these buildings or walls.
Residents have complained about what they deem to be vandalism done to their walls but there is also the school of thought that believes in the artistic nature of the graffiti.
A Gaborone resident, Thuso Matlhape, says he believes graffiti can be used in a better manner.
“I, for one, find graffiti to be a form of expression that one can use positively in the right context but it’s something I don’t condone when it’s used to make your property look ugly; that’s wrong,” says Matlhape, who is keen on studying art.
Spray paint is often used and sometimes faces are drawn or exaggerated into an artistic form that makes bystanders stop and ponder.
“I m not big on graffiti myself but sometimes I stop and wonder how these people who spray paint have such artistic skills and are not putting them to better use,” Matlhape said.
The problem with spray paint is that it can remain on the walls forever and is even more offensive when insults are exchanged between people writing on the walls.
Leungo Tumedi, a graphics designer, says Botswana has not made a conscious effort to accommodate the artistic nature of graffiti due to the way it’s used.
“It is looked upon badly because people use it for the wrong reasons and not really for art, and also the graffiti movement is not big in Botswana,” he says.
According to Wikipedia graffiti ‘is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property. Graffiti is any type of public markings that may appear in the forms of simple written words to elaborate wall painting’.
However, some forms of graffiti that include people leaving their mark in wet cement or concrete can help to commemorate a commitment of a couple, or can act as recollection point for a person. Often this type of graffiti is left unscathed and untouched for decades, and creates a historical focal point.
Some say there is need for new measures against graffiti while some view Graffiti as a continual progression of Hip Hop culture, which expresses artistic value.
The debate rages on as some residents do not seem impressed by the supposed creativity and are hoping to catch the artists red handed.
A number of residents say the problem is that the so-called artists move and spray their walls silently, adding that they often wake up to find the graffiti but there is never a trace left behind except a signature to identify the culprit.
The war may continue for some time to come, as very few residents seem able to counter what’s being done to their walls without their permission.
