Breaking down barriers through graffiti dialogue

ROBYN SASSEN

Dershowitz and his wife Sgula, both of whom are well-inked, with street artists from all over the world, were in South Africa during Israel Apartheid Week, as guests of the SAZF, the SAJBD and SA Friends of Israel.

Dershowitz told Jewish Report that by last week Thursday on the Wits campus, many students were turning away from the violent confrontations (instigated by the Palestine Solidarity Committee against SAUJS) and lining up in their hundreds to get T-shirts from Artists4Israel. The price of the shirts? To share a positive fact about Israel.

Artists4Israel started at the time of the Gaza/Israel conflict six years ago, when Dershowitz mounted an art show to raise money to help build bomb shelters in Sderot.

“It was attended by the kind of hip, urban people who protest against Israel on campuses,” he remembers. This exhibition made him realise his advocacy work was cut out for him. These were the people he needed to reach.

Not only was the fledgling Artists4Israel focused on raising money, it also wanted to bring beauty to a violent context. The decision to bring out people to paint bomb shelters, became central to Artists4Israel’s founding principles.

It hasn’t been all plain sailing, however. “For a long time, Artists4Israel was considered an ‘odd duck’,” he says. “We were frozen out of the community; they couldn’t see beyond my tattoos and didn’t understand the value of street art,” but times have changed.

Artists4Israel survives through small donations and agreements with big organisations. “We’re very grass roots. We’re also incredibly careful with our money. We do not have the overheads of big organisations.”

Because of its express anti-BDS views, Artists4Israel was invited to speak at an anti-BDS conference in the United States a few months ago; Ben Swartz, national chairman of the SAZF, was in the audience and the result is evident on the walls of Johannesburg’s CBD, Kliptown in Soweto, the tunnel between Wits’ east and west campus, and elsewhere.

Last week Thursday at Wits, Artists4Israel “were prepared for the worst”. Still, they set themselves up for spray-painting T-shirts, which immediately changed the energy on the piazza. “We ran out of shirts and spray paint before we ran out of people who wanted them.”

It was about more than T-shirts: “The students leaving the anti-Israel side asked my artists about things the PSC side had told them; suddenly they were engaging in dialogue. This is the power of our art.”

Dershowitz is savvy about the importance of graffiti. “At this point, we’re a leading organisation not just in Israeli advocacy, but in the graffiti art world too. We’ve worked with over 5 000 artists in various capacities and we’ve brought over 100 to Israel from 21 different countries.”

“We’re not so much giving graffiti a new face; we’re allowing the face that’s always been there to be seen. There are two sides to street art.”

2ESAE, also known as Mike Baca, one of Artists4Israel’s artists, explains how he fell in love with graffiti: “You know how dogs pee on trees? I was like that, writing my name everywhere: staking my claim. I went to jail for it, and in jail I received fan mail from all over the world. It blew my mind.”

Armed with a degree in graphic design, 2ESAE realised kowtowing to the corporate world wasn’t his thing; graffiti became his outlet. In partnership with Fernando Romero, known as SKI, 2ESAE started URNY, a collective about making New York boil with brightly coloured drawings.  

“I do this because I want to dull the fire between the fighting factions,” he says. “Nothing’s going to be solved with anger. We’re all human. I’m for peace.”

SKI explains: “We are the voice of the unheard: I fell in love with the rebelliousness of that act. It made me draw. Before I knew it, I had a tag: SKI – Stay Killing It – whatever you do, you have to do your best.”

Graffiti is distinguished as an artform by its territorialism. “I see its ugliness, but I’m mindful in how I do things,” he adds. SKI and 2ESAE are travelling with Artists4Israel to Cape Town this week, where they will be conducting graffiti, tattooing and PTSD prevention workshop