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Helsinki Black Book

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Writer #1

I leave home late Sunday morning and head for the subway station. Near the station a subway car that is completely covered in graffiti goes by. I start running after the train because I want to photograph it. I hope to catch it at the station. It’s still there as I arrive. I take over ten photos but there are things in the way and I can’t get a perfect picture. I decide to go to the train depot hoping to get better pictures. I go there over the fence and wait for the train to come. I notice two guards running by and I decide to leave because I know the depot is off-limits.

I jump over the fence but one of my shoes gets stuck in mud. I pick it up, put it on, and start running. I end up in an empty industrial lot a guard behind me. Several subway guard vehicles surround me. The guards throw me to the ground. One of them sits on my back another one chokes me and a third onebeats my leg with a nightstick. I pass out for a moment. When I come to, I am cuffed and sitting on the ground. Someone who drove bysaw all this and called out to the guards. That person said that it was both cowardly and unnecessary to beat up a kid like that. The guards told that person not to get involved and said they were just doing their job. I sit on the ground and complain about my leg. The guards say it’s all my own fault. We wait for the police. The police walk me to their car because I’m unable to walk.

At the police station my leg is photographed. I have to wait in a holding cell for an hour or so. Then I am interrogated. They ask what I have done. I say I’ve taken photos. The whole thing falls through as they realize I took the photosoutside of the depot. We talk about whether the guards exceeded their authority. That maybe they had too big of an adrenaline rush and lost control.The police let me go and say I might hear about this later on. I go homewhere a friend of mine picks me up and drives me to the hospital. There they say I have only minor injuries. Just some light bruises from the nightstick. The doctor says it’s probably mostly just the shock of being violently attacked.

The Stop Graffiti campaign turned me around completely. I got caught in a place where there was probably two inches of paint already on the walls. Only painters go there but I had to pay anyway. That stopped me from goingto these sort of semi-legal places. If places where people have always painted graffiti are cleaned up, I’ll start painting only in places where there has been nothing before.

I’m more of a landscape architect than a criminal. Although they get paidand I have to pay damages. The claim that graffiti increases crime is completely false especially in Finland. The idea has been imported from big cities abroad. Crime rates constantly fall but papers need exciting headlines. So they exaggerate the minor crimes that do occur. The papers say that a big criminal has been caught. But in fact nobody goes to those places (where graffiti is being painted) except for guards and people who are into this subculture.

There should definitely be places where graffiti is allowed. Pedestrian underpasses would be a good place. You could also have recycling bins for empty paint cans there. A gallery that would be open to painters during certain times. The number of illegal graffiti would probably fall greatly. I think graffiti is considered so bad and dangerous because it’s a part of youth culture that society hasn’t been able to control. I think that policymakers should look into this and consider how the funds of the Stop Graffiti campaign are used, for example.

Writer #2

It was a summer night. I was out celebrating the weekend. Late at night I ran into some people and ended up tagging with them. A police patrol saw me do it and took me to the station. I spent the night in jail. I was interrogated the next day. They kept me for three more days and searched my house. I was interrogated daily. Finally I was released.

They said I couldn’t travel and gave me a curfew. I had to stay home between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. I couldn’t leave Helsinki or go to the city center except for two times a week when I had to report at the police station.

Eventually It was decided that I had to pay 500 marks (ca 80 euros) for cleaning costs.

One great thing about graffiti is that anybody can go and paint one. I don’t consider myself a criminal but sometimes I felt like one. The fact that graffiti has been demonized has probably also increased its appeal. On the other hand I wonder why some people hate graffiti so much.

It’s really frustrating if everything is clean. It’s crazy to put all that energy into just cleaning up some surfaces. It’s hypocritical to say the least. It doesn’t make any sense at all. Not everything is perfectly spotless and cute. Problems can’t be solved by brushing them under the carpet.

Things have changed a bit as I’ve gotten older. Nowadays I don’t feel like going out to paint in the middle of the night. There is definitely a need for a place where graffiti would be allowed. It doesn’t make any sense that painting is forbidden everywhere. Of course the painters themselves would have to make it happen. But it wouldn’t be too much to ask that graffiti would be allowed somewhere.

Of course there are some people who want to paint where it is forbidden but a great many would just like to paint in peace.

To anti-graffiti people I would like to say that continue your work if you feel you must but ease up a little bit. There are many other things that would need the resources that are used for fighting graffiti.

Writer #3

It was a Sunday morning. The police came and searched my apartment. They told me I was suspected of serious vandalism. My girlfriend and I were sleeping when they came. The police took me to the station and put me in a cell. My girlfriend stayed in the apartment while the cops were searching it.

An hour later they told me I was under arrest and they moved me to another cell. I spent some 24 hours there without any information and without being interrogated. The next day they interrogated me. I was told that two people I knew had been caught photographing a graffiti-covered train about 6 months earlier. I had talked to one of them over the phone just before they were caught and so the police suspected that I was involved in painting the train.

I asked to talk to my girlfriend but the police said it wasn’t possible. They said they shouldn’t tell me but my girlfriend had been arrested, too. On suspicion of aiding and abetting in crime. I called my lawyer who said that the police can’t treat a family member, spouse or common-law spouse as a suspect. Already during the search my girlfriend told them we lived together. They shouldn’t have treated her as a suspect after that. So it was an illegal deprivation of liberty.

It became clear that the police had interrogated my girlfriend much more often than me. They made insane accusations and didn’t tell her about her rights. They didn’t tell her how long she would or could be held there. They just said she’d be under arrest until she talked. During the interrogations they made several accusations off the record. They told her that she was a heroine addict and a whore and that I had cheated on her with other women. All sorts of absurdities. Just to put some pressure on her.

In the end I was suspected of some fifty acts of vandalism plus the one act of serious vandalism. I was under arrest for 3 days and my girlfriend for two and a half.

Later, the head investigator who had interrogated me came to my apartment and said the warrant was still valid and he came to collect more evidence. He also gave me a notice that said I would have to appear for more interrogations next Monday. When I went there they told me quite forcefully to cut the bullshit and admit to everything. After, they told me I would be interrogated until I admitted to everything, every day, at the same time.

I contacted my lawyer and asked if this was legal. He said no. The police can’t pressure someone into confessing. He told me not to answer any questions the next day. Naturally, the police made these comments off the record.

But the next day when I appeared they told me to wait in the lobby. After a while, a policeman brought me some of my things that had been confiscated. He told me to get lost and said the interrogations would continue in the future. Some of my stuff I never got back. But I got some of them.

Several months passed and I was called to interrogations again. The police had received a report where I was suspected of several acts of vandalism. They said I would be charged later on. For almost two years after my arrest I thought I might have to pay tens of thousands of euros in damages plus fines and possibly go to jail.

But then I was notified that I wouldn’t be charged. After this my lawyer filed for compensation for deprivation of liberty. In the end, the state paid less than 300 euros to my girlfriend for those two and a half days she was held. I received some 400 euros for the 3 days they kept me.

Even as a little kid I wanted to play and hang around in places where there was
lots of graffiti. I liked surroundings where there was graffiti. They felt exciting. The walls contained so much Information that walking through a tunnel almost felt like being inside a story book. I guess that painting them myself kind of followed naturally.

I painted my first graffiti when I was thirteen. That got me started and I have painted ever since. These days, the fact that you can’t see graffiti almost anywhere inspires me to paint even more. I think graffiti is a natural part of a city’s landscape. I want to live in surroundings where there is graffiti.

I think graffiti is performance art because the whole process is as important as the end result. Graffiti’s universal message is that things can be different. It’s a statement. At the moment, especially against this Zero Tolerance fuss.

I think we all have an equal right to decide what the city looks like. And not just the ones who can pay to put up what they want. Everyone should be allowed to paint in public spaces. Places with graffiti don’t have any more crime than other places. I don’t believe graffiti has any connection to other crime or that it would increase crime.

The society sees me as a criminal because I paint illegal graffiti but I don’t consider myself a criminal. There has always been graffiti and there will always be graffiti no matter what is done to wipe it out. It is here to stay so you just have to accept it.

I can’t live according to someone else’s rules. In the end we all define our own rules.

Writer #4

I was returning home from a bar and ran into a strange situation. Two men: a big one and a skinny hippie-looking guy were beating up a kid maybe 15 years old. They threw him down on the street and his head started bleeding. The situation looked bad so I tried to stop it.

I tried to pull the big guy away but wasn’t able to. The skinny long-haired guy put a choke hold on me. He pulled me away and kept choking me. Fortunately, I was able to free myself. I lost my temper and the guy nearly shit his pants.

The attackers turned out to be plain-clothed guards. They beat the kid to the ground because of tagging. Apparently the kid had tagged some wall.

Then the police came and took the bleeding kid into their van. A third witness appeared and told the police that the two men had criminally assaulted the kid. I said I would testify but I haven’t heard about it since.

Beautiful graffiti is definitely always art. According to this society it’s criminal art. I don’t consider myself to be a criminal. But perhaps I have been branded a criminal. I have been caught some twenty times. Over the years I’ve had to pay maybe 3000 euros. It has been worth it. Nowadays I don’t even mind getting caught. I pay up without protest.

When I was caught (in the past) I was pissed off. Things were bad at home. Now I’ve grown up to be an adult who likes to paint. I’ve tried to keep a low profile but I’ve painted pretty much. No-one knows of the paintings. I just have photos myself. I don’t have a political message. The message is pretty much just that it looks nice. It may brighten up somebody’s day.

I don’t have much to say to anti-graffiti people other than try to cope with it.
I am not going to stop.

Writer #5

I was on a tram on my way home. An old friend of mine came into the same tram and we started tagging. We both wrote a couple of tags. I got off earlierand went to a gas station to buy some taffy.

When I exited the station a guy appeared from behind a corner and shouted my name. He and another guy grabbed me from behind. They didn’t show any IDs or say anything other than my first name. They just grabbed me and threw me to the ground. But they weren’t satisfied with me being on the ground so they pulled me on my feet and started throwing me around. There was pay-phone on the wall and they banged me against it. There was also a low railing and the guy who held me pushed me against it with his full weight.

He said that if I didn’t calm down I’d get badly hurt. The same guy started throwing me around again. Suddenly he fell on his back. He was still holding me by my shirtsleeve. At the moment I had no idea what happened. The guy just fell by himself.

It turned out that these guys were some kind of anti-graffiti guards. Later, the one who fell testified against me in court. He had injured his knee and he wanted me to pay 50 000 marks (ca 8300 euros) as compensation for it. He claimed that I had tried to hit him and that he had lost his balance when he dodged the punch. The funny thing, though, is that I never hit the guards and he was behind my back when he fell down. Fortunately, two young men stepped out of a passing bus because they sawhow I was being roughed up. They didn’t realize that the attackers were guards who were apprehending me. They thought I was being assaulted which in fact was true. So they came to check out the situation. When the incident was over and the police had arrived I saw the police take the names of the eyewitnesses.

Before the trial, I obtained the examination records to see what lies the guards had told. I underlined the parts that weren’t true and called the two eyewitnesses to ask if they would testify. They testified in the trial. Then in court, I found out that I was sued for 50 000 marks (ca 8300 euros) and my friend for 20 000 marks (ca 3300 euros). The guard wanted compensation for loss of pay and for not being able to use his car. He claimed that I was responsible for his injury and that I had to pay. Fortunately, I had the witnesses who told the court what had really happened. I asked the judge and the jury that if this “respectable" guard had indeed been assaulted by me, why didn’t he ask the witnesses to testify in his behalf. In the end, I didn’t have to pay the guard anything. I had to pay the Helsinki City Transport for the tags in the tram.

After this, the guards have harassed me when they’ve seen me somewhere. One night I saw a bunch of those guards in a bar in the city center. They started to call out my name in the bar. They kicked me in my ankles. I was standing on the dance floor when two men behind me started kicking my ankles and legs with their boots. They threatened me and my friends in all kinds of ways. They were clearly drunk, and they sat down at my table even though I asked them not to. The same guards showed me a driver’s license and claimed to be policemen.

I guess I could’ve sued them but it would’ve been pointless. I didn’t suffer any serious injury from their attack. Just some small bruises. Besides, I don’t care. On the other hand… Well, I don’t know…

Does it make any sense to pay these security companies with taxpayers’ money? The companies send like eight men to guard some tunnel that goes under a freeway somewhere in Porvoo or Vantaa or Espoo. So they spend the whole day guarding some wildlife underpass which isn’t even used by people. They watch over some tunnel that’s supposed to keep moose from getting hit by a car. Perhaps someone should keep an eye on the security firms so that we would know what are places that they guard. It’s a pretty easy job when seven guys sit in the woods for a week and catch like two people. But how much does it cost to have those guys sit there with extra-pay for a “dangerous job". Is it purposeful? If those places have had graffiti for 16 years, its not going to just disappear.

I guess I started painting for a quite common reason. Some time in the late 80's I got hold of some graffiti books. The same old story. Because the older boys painted I started to do it, too. These days, I paint for myself and my friends. Mostly for myself, I guess. The best place for me is a place where I know nobody will see the piece. In the past, I wanted to paint in places that were really visible and difficult to paint. I don’t mess up kindergartens, private property, churches, beautiful wooden houses, things of historical value, or stuccoed buildings. But prefabricated buildings, concrete walls, and noise barriers are free game. Anyway, I try to act responsibly. I don’t know… I don’t see it as a criminal activity.

I try to paint graffiti that is not serious but positive and cheerful. That’s my message because there’s never too much of that. Graffiti is its own thing. In a way, its art, but it doesn’t need to be taken into galleries. The best thing about graffiti is that you can do what you want and paint almost anywhere. Through this activity I’ve made good friends that I still have today. The time spent together painting is important. People who are against graffiti and who are annoyed by it should be against advertising, too. Billboards are everywhere and they’re illuminated so you can see them even when its dark.

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© 2005 Karri Kuoppala: Helsinki Black Book – Interviews on Helsinki based graffiti artists.

5-channel video installation.
Audio: Finnish, English subtitles.
Duration: 10+5+10+5+10 min.

Translation from Finnish to English language: Yasir Gaily
English language support: Enoch Bergsten
Assisting producer: Muriel Lässer
Idea, editing and audio & video recording: Karri Kuoppala

Thank you: Finnish Art Council, Finnish Academy of Fine Arts, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, special thanks to Tuukka Kaila and the Interviewed Artists.