This is a little preview of the SplitCity exhibition that is comming up next week.

As you all might know by now, SplitCity Magazine is the result of the honours year SinnSykShit undertook at Deakin University. SinnSykShit did a research on graffiti and advertising and had to come up with a creative result based on this research.

His result can be seen as the 'SplitCity exhibition' which is a part of the bigger group exhibtion 'Fractured Encounters' which features the works of this years Arts Honours graduates from Deakin Uni in Burwood/Melbourne.

"The aim of the SplitCity research is to compare attitudes of in-situ art (such as graffiti and street art) in Norway to those in Australia. I propose that attitudes to graffiti may change if it is compared with outdoor advertising. In ways similar to advertising, graffiti intrusively invades our private lives and can be seen to follow similar values. Both in Norway and Australia the benefits of advertising are obvious, but Melbourne has accepted graffiti as an art form while Oslo has not.
Having completed the research project I now believe that I understand why people in Oslo have difficulty accepting this form of art and put the answer as, quite simply, a lack of knowledge. After the zero-tolerance in Oslo and the brutal anti graffiti campaigns for almost two decades, people in Oslo have been constantly fed with propaganda that portrays graffiti and the artists in a negative light.
Complementing this exhibition I have designed an online and print magazine which will serve as an information channel for underground art such as graffiti. I will feature photos of the work in this genre and interview the artists, and the magazine is highly inspired from it’s well functioning counter parts in Melbourne. This way I will educate the people not by telling them how it is or should be, but by letting them read, look and make up their own decisions. This magazine concept will be named SplitCity Magazine, and represent the two views of Oslo, those for graffiti and those against. I hope SplitCity Magazine will help to contribute to a shift in the anti graffiti culture of Norway".

The exhibition is in the Pheonix gallery which is located behind Building P on Deakin Uni. You get there from the city by tram nr. 75 (takes about 45 min from Flinders). Here are the link for the event on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/452944341425014/

The exhibition opening is Wednesday 7th November and it starts at 6pm. There will be free beer, wine and food till it's empty.