Local artists interested in street style art will have three new locations to show off their talents.
“These are sites commonly referred to as graffiti ‘free walls’ where artists can come and freely paint without fear of criminal charges being laid at that site,” said Capital City Clean Up Graffiti Manager, Sharon Chapman.
The sites will be set up near Edith Rogers Junior High School in Mill woods, at the 63rd Street train bridge abutment between 99th Street and Gateway Boulevard, and at the back of the Fountain Tire on Whyte Avenue.
Monday night was the first of three public meetings to discuss the pilot program.
“People are a little concerned about spillover but overall everyone is very positive and wants the project to go ahead.”
Chapman said the city already has a plan to clean up any graffiti vandalism that occurs within a 250-foot radius of the free wall sites.
“In addition, we’re doing graffiti vandalism audits where we’re going to be monitoring the amount of graffiti spillover. So we’ll have a baseline of how much graffiti is in the area, and will actually be able to tell if there’s more graffiti coming into the area because of it, or less because of it,” Chapman said.
Edmonton currently has one free wall site along the LRT line between Churchill and Stadium stations.
The new free wall sites are expected to open in September.
