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Invasion of the 'autonomous zone'
Winnipeg Free Press
Focus, Sunday, November 20, 2005, p. b2
DALLAS HANSEN
A decade ago, when the Mondragn Café opened at 91 Albert
Street,
that building became known as the Autonomous Zone. Besides the
vegan-menu, fair-trade coffee shop and radically leftist bookstore, 91
Albert also housed the headquarters for the G7 Welcoming Committee
record label -- home to popular Winnipeg rock groups PropaGandhi and
The Weakerthans -- and, later, Arbeiter Ring Publishing, the latter
offering such titles as Against the New Authoritarianism and The
Grusome Acts of Capitalism.
Thus it's hardly surprising that the occupants of 91 Albert have
declined the Exchange District Business Improvement Zone's offers to
remove the building's graffiti. Although the subcultures of punk rock
and rap music are philosophically worlds apart, the Autonomous Zone's
anarchist-inspired tolerance of hip-hop-inspired urban calligraphy can
be summed up in a stenciled, spray-painted message on the north side of
the building -- along so-called Honeysuckle Alley -- which proclaims
the wall a "Fascist-Free Zone."
Given that three successful countercultural businesses -- with
adherents around the globe -- were developed from within the
graffiti-covered walls of 91 Albert, it seems odd that a city
councillor and a Business Improvement Zone would team up to demand that
the city "get tough" and take legal action to oblige the A-Zone to
clean up its walls. After all, the A-Zone has spent a decade building
brand-recognition based on free-thinking resistance to authority --
intolerance for graffiti would damage said brand with a loss of
credibility.
What Coun. Mike Pagtakhan and his fellow philistines fail to realize is
that today's most avant-garde contemporary art stems from street
culture, and that the city's clandestinely decorated alleyways comprise
a living museum of these forms. Rather than repel people, graffiti art
has made urban neighbourhoods more desirable and attractive. Montral's
St. Lawrence Boulevard and Toronto's Queen Street West are two of our
country's most popular shopping and entertainment districts; they are
also home to some of the densest concentrations of graffiti art. From
San Francisco's Twist to New York City's Zephyr, many graffiti artists
have enjoyed successful commercial careers; locally, Cose and Concave
hold bachelor's degrees in fine arts, and former Winnipegger Dect now
owns a Vancouver gallery.
West of Toronto, Winnipeg's old city is Canada's largest, but given our
geographical isolation, and the agrarian nature of much of this city's
business, a frequent theme of cultural conflict concerns the clashes
between urbane innovators and rustic intransigents.
On the one hand, civic leaders delight in pointing to the attention our
cultural workers gather upon the world stage; on the other, they scheme
policies to stifle them along the way.
Lisa Holowchuk, executive director of the Exchange District BIZ,
advocates a policy whereby the city can order businesses to remove
graffiti. "We need something with teeth," she has said. Brian
Timmerman, the Exchange District BIZ's operations director, believes
the city ought to have to right to remove -- without permission --
graffiti on private buildings and subsequently bill owners for the
"service."
Incredibly, these intrusive policy notions are originating from an
organization whose ostensible mandate is to cut red tape and promote a
laissez-faire business environment.
Downtowns do not succeed by replicating suburbia. A successful downtown
ought to be somewhat edgy, gritty, filled with character and wonder,
even mystery. Who did adorn that dumpster with a stylized signature of
a mysterious moniker? What was the inspiration behind that five-colour
cartoon character adorning a rooftop wall? These are the ponderings
with which I find myself as I stroll the back streets of any big city
with cultural merit, and they quickly transform into reveries that
translate into an experience I could never have at a sterile shopping
mall.
The graffiti explosion of the mid-1990s is one reason I fell in love
with Winnipeg's inner city, and its ruthless elimination seemed to me
needlessly repressive. It's ironic that those who denounced graffiti in
defence of private property rights are now willing to assail those
rights to quash what little of the culture here remains.
Dallas Hansen is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
dhansen@truwinnipeg.org
Category: Editorial and Opinions
Uniform subject(s): Laws and regulations; Midwives
Length: Medium, 564 words
© 2005 Winnipeg Free Press. All rights reserved.
www.dallashansen.com |
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