Street Art Boom Turns Town into Open Museum

Shibuya is one of the three biggest thriving towns in Tokyo and is well known as a town for young people. Around the town you will see lots of graffiti on the walls and shop shutters. A local group, which aims to create a safe town, began to turn graffiti into art so that people could walk the streets comfortably. The group decided to draw a picture on a wall near the station once a year. Consequently, in March 2007, a wall painting titled “Haru-no-Ogawa (A Brook in Spring)” was completed.

The first piece of work was painted by SHIINA Hitomi of the Nippon Designers School, along with 34 of her friends. The actual production process is as follows — First, they set up lights, clean the street, set up scaffolding, and apply an undercoat on the wall in order to make it easy to remove graffiti painted by others. Then, they draw grid outlines and make a preliminary sketch using marker pens. Finally, colors are applied with paint brushes.

“We all went through a lot of hardships,” says Shiina. “Although the structure looks good in the original picture, when looking at it after painting it on the wall we can see there are lots of areas that lack balance. There is a difference in the pressure required to paint the image on paper and to paint it on a wall and our arms get tired from the latter. The “Haru-no-Ogawa” wall painting, which took approximately two months to paint as part of an extracurricular activity, was so well received that many bus passengers deliberately disembarked to go and see it.

However, four months after the painting was completed, it was drawn on by vandals. The wall art in the underground passage that has a pull-down shutter for protection was kept safe, but the paintings on other walls along the street were left in a dreadful condition. YANAGISAWA Mao and SARASHINA Sakura, who painted the pictures together with Shiina, says, “We thought why here intentionally?” “The flower petals, which we worked so hard on to draw, have been defaced.”

Regardless, the group painted over the scribbles and reproduced their paintings all over again. About 120 local volunteers participated in the work. Some of them painted during their paid days o ff from companies. “At first I expected 40 people to volunteer, but that was a ‘happy miscalculation,’” says Mr. KIZU Hideyuki, who has been living near Shibuya station since his grandfather was alive.

“It is a joy to draw a picture on the wall,” says Yanagisawa. “Thanks to this opportunity, I had the chance to make many friends.” “I was very happy when I heard a passerby say to me, ‘Nice job!’, and also when I hear junior high school students traveling on school excursions shout ‘Great!’” says Sarashina. MACHIDA Kanako, who devoted herself to the restoration work, sometimes alone, says with a smile: “One of the good points about street art is that we can all share in the joy and satisfaction of completing the work.”

Street art is useful for protecting against graffiti. Furthermore, it is effective for protecting people from becoming victims of crime, according to the “broken window” theory, namely if a broken window is left broken, people will think no one is taking care of the property and public security will worsen. Due to the growing interest in street arts, it is likely that wall paintings drawn with the cooperation of local people and young artists will be seen in many more places around town soon.

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