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Denmark international students upcycle graffiti wall with graffiti art project

Students at the Rygaards international school in Copenhagen repainted a graffiti-covered wall near their school with their own street art-inspired project.

Published: 13 June 2017 17:38 CEST

Denmark international students upcycle graffiti wall with graffiti art project

The wall before (top) and after the project. Photo: Rygaards School

Under the direction of their art teacher, Nadine Meinicke-Kleint, a group of international year 9 students from the school in Hellerup were granted permission to paint a wall on the Hellerupvej road.

The wall near to the school has been a common spot for graffiti, an art form that the students decided to channel into their own mural project.

The theme for the mural was chosen by the students, who last week laid the ground work by painting the wall white, before spending Monday afternoon creating their masterpiece.

“I wanted to have a public space for the kids, it gives the project something more than doing it at school. So we asked the residents of a local villa for permission to paint the wall outside their property.

“The house has been graffitied before, so I think they were happy to have the art there,” Meinicke-Kleint told The Local.

Photo: Rygaards School

The teacher said that her class had coordinated their individual contributions to the project to ensure a cohesive final product.

“They came up with the idea themselves. They wanted to communicate with their local surroundings. It’s actually quite impressive, they’re only 13 and 14 years old, so it’s quite impressive that they were able to put together something like this,” she said.

READ ALSO: The world's best school building is in Copenhagen

Around 250 students of up to 80 nationalities attend the secondary school, which follows an international version of the British school curriculum and teaches French and German as well as Danish.

Meinicke-Kleint, who teaches one of the year 9 classes at the school, said that the project had given students a better sense of the difference between street art and graffiti.

“Street art is one of the most successful movements of the last 40 years, so it’s important to teach it,” she said, adding that the stencil-based street art of British political activist and anonymous street artist Banksy was one example she was able to use in her classes.

Photo: Rygaards School

“Stencil art is actually a very challenging technique, but it gives rewarding results,” she said.

READ ALSO: Education abroad: How to find an international school

African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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