Reverse Grafitti in San Francisco: Dirty Art
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada 
on 06.13.08
Reverse Grafitti: Creating Art by Cleaning Up
Three years ago, we wrote about an air pollution guerilla marketing tactic in Chicago where they power-washed sidewalks with stencil forms to create shapes and texts. Well, we've found what the next level of that idea looks like!
The Reverse Grafitti Project in San Francisco is creating environmental art by cleaning up dirt and grime from walls. In the video above, you can see them making a 140 feet long mural in the Broadway tunnel. It shows native species of native plants that would be living in the area of that tunnel if it wasn't currently the city's downtown (that project was a promo for Green Works).
More on the Reverse Grafitti Project
Reverse Grafitti Project
The Reverse Graffiti Project in San Francisco
Moose's Reverse Graffiti
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Pretty clever. Sure would make the tunnel less boring to look at.
Awesome! It's great to see it in the city!
I saw a similar story about a guy in London (I think).
he was doing skulls. The police tried to arrest him but because all he was doing was cleaning ,they couldn't stop him. in the end the city washed all the tunnels.
you can search "reverse graffiti" on youtube and find it. it's pretty cool.
it's interesting that the city is not only in favor of this guy but that he's even got a corporate sponsor.
This is such a great thing to do with our stock of really stupid and ugly design. Given architecture and infrastructure that looks worse and worse the older it gets, we need interventions like this.
And, we need to design better. Cathedrals have hundreds of years of soot and dirt caked on them and they look great. They have texture and design details that are augmented by dirt; it provides contrast. There is no reason we can't design artistically to take advantage of aging.
I saw this a couple days ago from a cab in SF, it is so awesome! I really hope more of this starts going on in the city.
SanFranFran, I think you were thinking of this video.
It's an artist in Brazil. Quite amazing work. Similar story, he cleaned the walls in a tunnel but this bloke "cleaned" hundreds of skulls to show how dirty the walls were.
Youtube Link: Reverse Graffiti : Ossario : Alexandre Orion
Graffiti Removal Brooklyn NY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb6u4AkLlM8
Bravo! On beautiful sunny days in the city I like to walk to work and sometimes I decide to go through the Broadway tunnel. Only downside is it's really loud. Like putting your ears through the washer. Next time I walk by there I'll be sure to check out the power washed mural.
Great idea ... pretty design, and clean the city...