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Author Tom Dartnell Talks Beijing’s Graffiti Scene
Interview by Alistair Baker-Brian
Shanghai-based author Tom Dartnell has been documenting graffiti since 1988. In recent years, his attention has turned to the small but intriguing graffiti scene in Beijing.
Beijing Graffiti is a recent book co-authored by Dartnell along with Beijing photographer Liu Yuansheng, also known as ‘Liu Laoshi.’ The book features Liu’s photographs of graffiti works by various artists around the capital city. The images are accompanied by interviews in which each artist gives their thoughts on Beijing’s graffiti scene.
That’s talked with Dartnell about his own passion for graffiti and the unparalleled work of Liu Laoshi in photographing Beijing graffiti.
You started covering graffiti in 1988 in Brighton in the United Kingdom. Why did you become interested in graffiti in the first place? I got into it at the tail-end of graffiti’s arrival in the UK. It came over around 1983 or 1984 as part of the hip-hop package from New York. That was the first wave. In 1983, I was only nine years old, so I wasn’t really aware of it. But by the time I was around 14 in 1988, I was into it and knew what it was about.
I started seeing it in Brighton, where I lived. I started off documenting it, just taking photos of everything I saw. Over my adolescent years, I got to know a lot of graffiti artists. By the early ’90s, I was heavily involved and was painting a lot. This was before the internet and before the explosion of street art and Banksy. So, the public perception was much different, and it was much more of a secret society than it is now.
What do you think makes graffiti attractive as an art form? It’s interesting that you say ‘art form.’ For me, I was attracted to the social and cultural side of graffiti. I wasn’t the smartest kid in class, I was never picked first for sports, and I wasn't particularly good at art either. But with graffiti, I could get some recognition. I could stand out, even if it was just among other graffiti artists.
Towards the end of Beijing Graffiti, there’s an interview with a girl called Mage. She talks about how she was really shy. But with graffiti, she found a way to communicate with others. It brought her out of her shell. I can certainly relate to that.
Liu Yuansheng, or Liu Laoshi, is someone we’ve previously covered. Can you give us a sense of his importance in the Beijing graffiti scene? I first became aware of him through a documentary about the Beijing graffiti scene. I was just fascinated by him. He was a guy in his 50s and had this curiosity about graffiti. He had this drive to go all over Beijing and take photos of graffiti. He was the last person you would expect to do this. Back in the UK, most people of his age would be totally against graffiti – they would hate it. But this guy took a liking to it.
In the early days, I don’t think he understood too much about graffiti in other countries. I don’t think he understood how it is highly illegal and frowned upon. But nonetheless, he just took all these photos to document graffiti in Beijing.
And the book really is his book. I’m just there to put his photos in context from a Western perspective based on my 30 years of interest in graffiti. I don’t want to say the photos are the history of
Beijing graffiti because I think you would have to explore much deeper than that, and you can’t do that with one person’s photos. But the book is how he’s watched the local scene develop through his lens. He started taking photos specifically of graffiti in 2004. And he hasn’t really stopped until the last few years.
In the introduction of the book, you talk about the revolutionary sub-culture in the 1960s, the train graffiti movement in New York in the 1970s and 1980s and how there were lots of young people who wanted to express themselves through graffiti. How have artists in Beijing been influenced by Western subcultures, and to what extent is there a Chinese influence on their work?
Graffiti really started showing up in China around the late-1990s. The big difference between when I got into it in the UK and when Chinese kids got into it is the internet. Some of the older guys in the book, like the Beijing Penzi (BJPZ) guys, got into graffiti through skateboarding. They might have seen graffiti in a skateboarding video and then be-
come curious about it. Similarly, some of them might see it in a rap or hip-hop video and become curious that way. They may have been even more detached from the source of it in New York than I was, in terms of distance and time, but they were still able to learn about it.
In terms of other Western influences, some Western graffiti artists who have traveled to China, either on holiday, to work, or specifically to paint. They’ve got in touch with some of the Beijing graffiti artists and painted with them. And that’s a great way to learn – actually having someone share firsthand knowledge in person.
When I think about the graffiti scene around the world, I wouldn’t think, “What British influences can you see in British graffiti?” or “What French characteristics does French graffiti have?” So it's unfair to expect Chinese graffiti to have obvious Chinese characteristics.
Of course, something that does make some Chinese graffiti distinct is that rather than using the Western alphabet, some artists use Chinese characters as their names. Graffiti is based around lettering before anything else, and the majority of Chinese graffiti writers use Western letters. However, there is a small pocket of artists that use Chinese characters (such as Zato mentioned in the book).
I much prefer looking at graffiti that uses Chinese characters. I’ve been watching graffiti for 30 years, so to see pieces using Chinese characters is refreshing and exciting for me. And because I can’t read Chinese, it adds that air of mystery for me. It’s the same way I felt when I started seeing graffiti in Brighton and didn’t know who was doing it.
Something else that local artist Zato talks about is how graffiti crews want to “conquer territory.” Is this hard to do in modern-day Beijing? The graffiti scene in Beijing is not dying, so to speak, but it has become increasingly difficult. The scene has always been small. The population of Beijing is more than 20 million, and ever since there has been a graffiti scene in Beijing, there have perhaps only been about 100 graffiti artists at most. You go to any European or American city, and you’ll find scenes that have thousands of artists in even smaller places.
As a graffiti artist, you really have to have that drive to go to all corners of the city and put your name up. And only a few writers have achieved that in Beijing. Just from my time spent there and seeing the names in all corners of the city, I’d say only a few people like Zato and crews like KTS and YDS have really managed to achieve that.
In 2014, authorities put up a plastic screen at the Badaling Great Wall as a designated area for graffiti, in part as a way to stop people from doing graffiti on the wall itself. Do these kinds of designated areas defeat the purpose of marking one’s territory in graffiti?
I don’t think the screens at Badaling were specifically placed there in response to the ‘graffiti artists’ we’re talking about. I’ve seen similar screens in the watchtowers at the Mutianyu section of the wall – covered in simple scrawls by tourists as if they were signing a visitor’s book. But there are areas in the city where the graffiti I’m talking about is tolerated. But yes, these areas do defeat the purpose to some extent. Much of the thrill of graffiti comes from doing it without permission.
Also, when you have these ‘safe’ designated areas, not just in Beijing but anywhere in the world, you have a lot of people coming along and trying to do graffiti just because it’s trendy. But they perhaps don’t really understand the true history of the culture and what it’s about. They might have a more commercial mindset. They might want to be a professional artist and ultimately make money from it. But graffiti is more about having fun. These kids in New York in the 1970s who were spraypainting their names on trains weren’t getting paid. They did it for fun. I think that’s important. When you start to try and turn it into a career, it’s not the same. If people wanted to learn more about graffiti in Beijing, where could they go? I haven’t been to Beijing since 2019 because of COVID restrictions, so I can’t really say where the best spots are at the moment.
The 798 Art District is a good starting point. You’ll see work by some of the city’s most active graffiti artists. Graffiti in 798 is tolerated. But not all of Beijing’s graffiti artists necessarily paint in these tolerated spots. I would say that discovering the graffiti scene in any city is more about walking around and coming upon graffiti by chance. Some graffiti might only last a couple of days. Graffiti is getting increasingly hard to track down.
The best way to gauge the health of a city’s graffiti scene is to go out onto the streets and just walk around to see where there is graffiti in public. Certainly do not rely on things like Instagram because someone could be painting something in their back garden and posting every day without putting in the real work of going across the city and doing graffiti in all these exciting new spots.
>This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. Liu Yuan Sheng and Tom Dartnell’s new book ‘Beijing Graffiti’ is available to purchase on Amazon.
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NIK A K ATERYNCHUK
Founder of nudepeche
Interview by Phoebe Kut
Have you taken the time to pause and reflect about your life purpose? Twenty-two year old Ukrainian Nika Katerynchuk, has been modeling in China for the past five years and recently asked herself that question. She’s embraced the highs and lows of working in a foreign country and is now embarking on a new journey of building her own business. She’s been working on launching nudepeche, a sustainable yoga wear brand which emerged from the gap in the market she saw when searching for sustainable clothing in China.
Tell us a bit about yourself, how did you transition from modeling to yoga? I was pretty happy with modeling in the beginning, it gave me everything a young girl can dream about: money, attention, millions of followers on social media, travel and parties. Working in extreme weather conditions, not eating to be ‘beautiful’ in the industry, sleeping only a few hours a night and losing all my friends was a fair price. But last year something changed. I started to ask myself, “Why don’t I still feel beautiful after not eating for a day or seeing my poster in the mall? Am I really happy, or does my happiness depend on others’ perception of me? What’s my purpose?” At that time, yoga came to my life and I felt like I faced my ‘true self.’ I looked deep inside myself and didn’t find any purpose from what I was doing. I started to feel bad about promoting fast fashion brands that are just polluting our planet, I wanted to be part of something more meaningful. My partner also opened my eyes on a huge problem our planet faces nowadays, which I simply never even thought about before. I started to educate myself about sustainability, and I started every morning on my yoga mat to ‘talk to my inner self.’ After a while, I made this step in my life to quit modeling and was motivated by a call to ‘change the habits of yesterday.’ I created my lifestyle activewear brand nudepeche, and started my journey in yoga teaching. I want to build a community interested in being healthier and see the beauty in actions, minds and words… not on posters.
Working in the fashion industry, was starting a clothing brand always in your mind? I never thought about working in the fashion industry, I never felt a huge passion for fashion, it was more just a desire to prove to myself and everyone that I could be a model. When I started to think about quitting modeling, I didn’t even think about starting a clothing brand, as I didn’t support the idea of what the fashion industry has become, how it just forces people to buy things they don’t need. However, I started to look for sustainable clothing yoga brands for myself but couldn’t find any in China, so I decided I want to create one. Not just to sell the clothes, but to build the community, to deliver the message to people. I don’t see nudepeche as a ‘fashion brand,’ for me it’s a choice of comfortable activewear. My focus is to make clothing as comfortable as can be for every body, and I always keep in mind the idea of ‘less is more’ while designing for nudepeche.
Who is your favorite designer? It’s better to ask which woman I look up to (my mom for starters), because this is what inspires and motivates me for nudepeche. I don’t see myself as a designer, but as a catalyst to change.
Tell us more about the recycled bottles and the fabric. nudepeche’s fabric is made from recycled plastic bottles and each piece prevents up to 25 water bottles from ending up in landfills. The production of recycled PET uses about 90% less water than production of virgin polyester and is definitely a sustainable option for your wardrobe. However, it is still non-biodegradable and takes years to decompose once thrown away. The recycled polyester we use for our clothing is high-quality, but we understand that needs and body sizes change, so if and when it is time to say bye to your nudepeche clothing, either pass them to another person or take them to your nearest clothing recycle bin so they can be recycled into another piece of clothing!
We also have a recycle program where you may send us your old nudepeche clothing in exchange for a 25% discount.
What’s the most exciting part of starting your own business? For me, every part of the process from getting the business license in China as a foreigner, to seeing someone wearing the clothes we created is extremely exciting. I guess the most exciting part for me, is to see people inspired by our message and trying to make every part of the process as ethical and sustainable as we can! To see changes in people’s actions and minds, that’s worth working for!
> This interview has been edited for clarity. Search ‘nudepeche’ on WeChat official accounts, Instagram, Weibo, or Taobao to order.
