Works of art boost Henderson civic pride, curb graffiti

20 September 2016
For immediate release

An artwork featuring a member of the Henderson Police was gifted back to the police as part from the Love Hendo project to build community pride and re-engage youth in the west Auckland suburb through art and design.

Henderson Police have had an active ambassador for Love Hendo in long-standing police constable Martyn Spear, who features in the print. Project artist Nate Cole yesterday donated the artwork to the police for its support for enlivening Henderson with large, colourful murals.

Kākano Youth Arts Collective artists, who are mentored by established artists to create murals and street art, have created four large public artworks in Henderson, which have contributed to a 60 per cent reduction in graffiti in the town centre over the past 15 months. More will go up in the coming months.

“If taggers see us putting these art works up around the community, I believe it will have more of an impact on them to want to do that instead of tagging,” says Nate.

Unitec tutors, Paul Woodruffe and Bobby Hung, a.k.a. street artist BERST, have been among those to help bring the public artworks to fruition.

“You can become more notorious and more famous by doing permission based art work instead of illegal stuff,” says Paul. “So it is our job to facilitate the permissioned based stuff and make it cool to do.”

Corban Estate Arts Centre, Unitec Institute of Technology, Community Waitakere, Henderson Police, Toi Ora Trust all contribute to the Love Hendo project, which is funded by Henderson Massey Local Board.

A project objective is to provide pathways into education for these talented young individuals. As a result, two members of the Kākano collective have been admitted into Unitec to study art design.

“All the talent is out West, we want the best graduates with the edgy stuff,” says Paul. “It’s good for them because they are getting an education that is going to enable them to make a living as an artist or a designer. And it’s good for Unitec because we get graduates who go off and do really cool stuff.

“School doesn’t always work for a lot of creative people; it didn’t work for me. And the gap between dropping out of school and coming to Unitec can be big. It’s our job to put a bridge across that gap.”

The Kākano collective made the special tribute art pieces for Love Hendo, which is now gifting them back to the key organisations who supported the project.

For more on Love Hendo: https://www.facebook.com/Love.Hendo/

ENDS

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