J enifer Blumenschein

Becka Andrews
Robin Ogura
Kristin Watt
Professor J ohn Mahone
AGAD 201
17 November 2013
Campaign Strategy
GOALS, OBJ ECTIVES AND RATIONALE
When the word graffiti is brought up in conversation, it generally surfaces two
main thoughts: illegal vandalism or street art; both of which are very different
perceptions and, unfortunately, some people fail to see the differences. Its crucial that
the public is educated on how legal street art can be a positive impact on the
community. The City of Edmonton is regrettably more on the side of the fence that
believes street art is mostly offensive, discriminatory, and harmful and causes the city to
be less attractive. While the community has been actively taking part in graffiti removal
projects, there has also been encouraged graffiti in just one specific area; this is where
our main goal comes in.
We want to create more opportunities for graffiti artists to showcase their work in
a public environment without suffering persecution from the law as we dont think that
this one area is enough to do this effectively. This free-zone area is where the City
allows graffiti artists to hone their skills. The Edmonton Arts Council explains that
Graffiti Zones are legal and permanent sites for an evolving public artwork, where
artists have permission to create street art One of our long-term objectives to make
this goal successful is to produce one wall per year that will be dedicated to graffiti art;
they will be placed in high crime areas of the City of Edmonton. Because this is a fairly
large project to plan for, we are campaigning for a test-run that is more of a short-term
project. This would be to create a graffiti zone wall on the Centre for the Arts MacEwan
campus. In order to make this successful, we would raise awareness of graffiti and how
to differentiate between street art and vandalism via posters, social media, groups, the
Griff etc. We would encourage students and surrounding citizens to use the wall and the
success of this project would help us gauge whether or not it would be successful in
other areas of the city
There are various reasons as to why we feel this project would be beneficial to
the community. Some citizens may find well done street art to be comforting or the
reason for a smile. Its a way of brightening up darker areas of town. On a more
statistical side of things, CCCU (Capital City Clean Up) spokeswoman Sharon
Chapman stated at a police graffiti investigation workshop that there has been a 43%
decrease in graffiti vandalism-prone areas since 2010. We believe that if we increase
the number of graffiti free-zones, that this statistic will also increase.
Additionally, because of the bylaw that is implemented, what ends up being
encouraged by graffiti artists is quick and dirty work. They arent attempting larger,
vibrant and appealing pieces for fear of getting caught. If the City was to provide more
outlets for street art, the community would be pleasantly surprised at what kind of art
could come out of it and some may even change their minds about this genre of art.
Graffiti is often, unfortunately, linked with disadvantaged young people. However, if
more opportunity arises for these young people to express themselves free of
prosecution it will encourage youth engagement, development of young artists skills,
brighten dull areas of space, or even advertise new products in new and exciting ways.
If this change isnt made and these new free-zone walls arent produced, there may or
may not necessarily be any new consequences, but there is no harm in attempting to
lessen those concerns by creating more opportunities for our citys artists.

STAKEHOLDERS
The City of Edmonton
The City of Edmonton would be a stakeholder because the walls would be placed within
the Edmonton area. The walls would affect any existing neighborhoods that they are
being placed in and Edmonton artists would be the ones presented with the opportunity
to place their art on these walls. If there are any existing artists in Edmonton who are
hoping to have a place where they can paint without prosecution they would be
interested in the building of the walls. Citizens who also disapprove of all graffiti would
advocate against the walls being built for graffiti artists.
The City of Edmonton Capital City Clean-up
The CCCU would be a major stakeholder because they are the organization that cleans
up graffiti in the street. They would need to be informed of any graffiti walls going up
and would have a major say in where they go. The council may support the idea
because it could potentially minimize the amount of graffiti that is placed on public
property. They may also be against the idea because it promotes more graffiti artists to
come out and paint their work. If they chose to graffiti on items/buildings other than the
wall then the council would have to step in and clean up the mess. The wall would affect
the council by either reducing the amount of graffiti in the street or by increasing it.
Edmonton Arts Council (EAC)
The EAC would be a stakeholder because they are supporters of all art in Edmonton. If
the walls support a healthy environment for graffiti artists to paint, than the EAC would
be interested in hearing about how they work and may support the walls being built.
Since the walls do support more artists to display their work, they may have some
similar visions as the EAC.
Affected Local Communities
Affected local communities would be important stakeholders of the project because of
the walls being built inside of their neighborhoods. Some members of these
communities may not want these walls being places near their homes because some
graffiti has been known to be gang related. They may want their neighbourhoods to be
graffiti free zones, instead of zones where it would be welcomed. The opposite could
also be said for any members of these communities who happen to be artists. If walls
are being placed in areas where there are a lot of graffiti artists, they would be
supported and the community would enjoy having a place specifically set aside for
graffiti works.
Edmonton Police Service (EPS)
The EPS would be a stakeholder because their work would be affected by the walls
placement. They would need to monitor the walls to make sure that they are being used
properly and to make sure that artists are only placing their works on the walls. They
would need to step in and take action in prosecuting individuals if they begin to paint on
the buildings in the neighborhoods around the walls. Their help would be needed in
helping keep art on the open art walls.
Grant MacEwan Students
If a test wall is placed outside of Grant MacEwan, than the students would be
stakeholders because they would be involved in getting some of their work on the walls.
The walls would be open for all Grant MacEwan students to come by and paint their
works and it will be very involving with the students on campus. Any artists may like it
because it will be a place for them to show their work in a nourishing open environment.
Grant MacEwan University
Grant MacEwan would be a major stakeholder because the walls would be placed on or
around the property of the school. The school would need to support the idea and be
willing to let the artists place graffiti on open walls in the school area. They would also
be needed to help regulate the wall to make sure the students are not abusing the walls
by placing work on the school or surrounding communities instead of the walls.

TACTICS
Team Up With MacEwan Universitys Centre For the Arts
In order to make any of this possible, our group needs to meet up with MacEwan and
come to terms with what we can and cannot do. If we are going to be using such a large
piece of their building, they need to be able to still maintain a good name for their
campus. This will include multiple negotiations, however since our project is promoting
artistic freedom in Edmonton, we believe that nothing we are trying to promote will be
compromised. Using this campus, we will have access to all of MacEwans arts
students, helping us to achieve a more professional and serious look from people
outside of the project. With a help from MacEwan and their students, we can raise more
awareness for the campaign and create more credibility to the project because of our
association. Tools Used: Activism
Create a Facebook, Instagram and Twitter Account for the Project
Having a social media presence will allow our group to have more of a connection with
those who may be interested in what were trying to do for Edmonton. Since graffiti is
most common with teenagers and young adults, social media will be the most helpful
way to reach that audience. By using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, we will be able
to interact with people which will not only create awareness, but will allow people to
acquire constant updates with how the project is coming along, what they can do to
help, and receive answers to any other questions that they may have. Tools Used:
Advocacy, Activism
Speaking with Representatives in Edmonton
Since there are so many sides to this project, we really hoped to get more intel from
professionals who are inside the graffiti scene in Edmonton already, such as someone
within Capital City Clean-Up, a teacher at the Centre for the Arts campus and the
manager of the Art Gallery of Alberta. By talking to these people, we can find all the
answers to things that we may not have known to ask and by having contacts from
more than one side of the issue, we will be able to get a more rounded perspective.
They can point out flaws in our plan and give us advice on how to tackle certain topics
that we may think is standing in our way. Tools Used: Advocacy, Lobbying
We conducted a phone interview with Sharon Chapman the Capital City Clean-up
spokesperson and these questioned her on the CCCU programs policies and
determined:
Do you support the open mural wall? Why or Why not?
I wouldnt say as far as to directly support them, we enforce the bylaw 14600
which is responsible for ensuring that graffiti is removed from property where it is
located, we work with the EAC and their mandate to promote public art. We are
in partnership with them, if public art is there mandate we would like to ensure it
is done in the way that supports with the community and doesnt interfere with
the bylaw
Who are you accountable to?
CCC funded by Edmonton through tax dollars so are accountable by the citizens
of Edmonton and is made to ensure that they are working to reduce the amount
of graffiti in the city
Do you relate graffiti as vandalism and do you connect it with gangs? How would
you describe it?
In Edmonton, less than 5% is done by gangs from stats given by the EPS and
the vast majority is considered hip hop works, and some racist (less than 1-2%).
Edmonton does a graffiti audit every year and a cast majority and 88% is text
based, so small tags is most of the graffiti in Edmonton
Is there a lot of gang related graffiti in Edmonton?
There is not, less than 5%. Not very much of the work is artistic, is it mostly small
text, less than 2 square feet in size.
Are there a lot of big name taggers?
Not really, there are some local artists, but a vast majority are not doing illegal
graffiti anymore, since we have been trying to promote free graffiti art and
legitimate legal art in Edmonton.
What is the vision of Capital City Clean Up?
Their focus is enforcement of the bylaw that they support and a vision of how
they can develop programs to support graffiti prevention, while creating art
through the mural program. They produce two murals a year to give options to
reduce vandalism, by giving alternative options. Edmonton has a program that
could give schools could get a grant up to 2000 dollars to use to put up a mural in
the community. They are positive ways to put art in the community and depend
on the community to help change. They need the support of the community to
work with them and want to see positive change in the community. They also
want to know if the program is working since the whole idea is that the mural
projects is to look at the research they are gathering to see what the components
are that they can make to help the art in the community. Capital City Clean Ups
motto is They cant do it alone, meaning they are relying in the community to
help support them and help change.
We also contacted Agnieszka Matejko a Fine Arts instructor at MacEwan University
CFAC through e-mail to ask questions about obstacles in public art related to the mural
walls. Here email response was as follows: -

The greatest obstacle to public art - other than obtaining funding - is obtaining
city permissions. There are many ways of gaining these but by far the simplest
one is to apply for existing projects through the EAC. They are then responsible
for working with the city.
I worked with the Stony Plain Business Association and the ED asked permission from
all the businesses to place artwork in front of their location. This was not sufficient and
City Transportation was unhappy to have art put outside without their permission. You
can also work directly through the city by speaking to Great Neighbourhoods and
Revitalization Zones, they offer grants and support but I have found this very
complicated and some projects got stalled for reasons that were never explained.
The whole issue of permissions is very complex and something I am still trying to figure
out. Its best if you call the city directly as there seem to be no easy answers or beaten
paths. Only artists who work through the EAC can manage this easily.
I personally like to create art that's meaningful to specific communities and my projects
engage community members. (That is a philosophical stance that may be outside of
what you are asking me.) But these are the kinds of project I would like to see more of
in the city. Right now we tend to plonk art in communities without much consultation or
community engagement. Some of the projects that interest me are by Steve Powers
from Philadelphia as they reclaim public spaces with private messages - his works don't
engage communities other than as viewers but they are populist and appeal to anyone
of any age.
Column in the Griff Newspaper
By writing to the school newspaper and having them publish what we are advocating
for, we will be able to connect easier with more students and staff around the MacEwan
campuses. Tools Used: Advocacy. A demo of our letter would be as follows:
Attention to any and all graffiti artists!
A group of students in the Arts and Cultural Management program at
MacEwan will be conducting a test of open art walls on the Centre for Arts
and Cultural campus nearing the end of September. The open art wall will be
a place for all graffiti artists to openly display their work in a monitored
environment without any prosecution. The walls are meant to study how
graffiti artists will work when given time to put in more effort into their works.
The walls will be open at all hours and spray cans will not be provided for this
project. The art must ONLY be placed on the walls, any works placed off or
around them will be removed and the project will be terminated. This will also
apply to any works of racism, any inappropriate sexual content, or language.
We hope to see some great works from the students of MacEwan and hope
that this will provide many good opportunities for artists in the school to show
off their work in a safe environment.
Hang Posters In and Around Edmonton
Posters will help to get the word out there about the creation of the wall and will be
aimed towards gathering people for the unveiling of the blank wall. This will help reach
the audiences that are not constantly on the internet or apps on their smart phones such
as older audiences or teenagers without the privilege of electronics. The posters will be
put up in local affected communities, in and around all of the MacEwan campuses and
businesses surrounding the potential location of the wall. Tools Used: Advocacy

EVALUATION
Evaluation Before the Campaign
An evaluation of the campaign will be conducted through all the phases to
promote a successful campaign. Evaluating how the campaign progresses and any
improvements or modifications that were implemented will be important information to
foresee any challenges; as the campaign is an organic design. The key topic to
evaluate before the campaign takes place is what were the graffiti patterns reported
statistics of prior years within the community of Stony Plain. At the end of the campaign
having a comparison the crime rates of graffiti vandalism in the community to
understand if graffiti vandalism was happening more in prior years or after the wall was
opened to the public. This evidence will help in evaluating if this neighborhood is a good
candidate for an open-source mural wall.
Evaluation During the Campaign
The process of evaluation that will be completed throughout the development of
the campaign will be more extensive to ensure that the campaign is successful.
Assessing if the campaigns objectives are achieved will be the focal outcome to
evaluate. Determining how the objectives were carried out during the course of the
campaign and any problems that happened would prompt us to evaluate specifics such
as: resources, time, and scope. Every milestone that the campaign reached would be a
reason for evaluation to determine the campaign was within its scope, on budget, and
was being completed on time.
During these evaluations determining what to have done differently and keeping an
open mind throughout the steps to will benefit completion the campaign. Understanding
what factors contributed to the success or failure of the campaign and which specific
approaches worked and which did not will also be a part of the evaluation.
Through the campaign preparing an evaluation on how involved the public is in
the campaign will be done by assessing the actions of the audience such as:
o Did they talk about the open-source mural wall?
o Did the public use the wall?
o Did they want to receive more information?
This information will be useful to determine if other aspects of the project were
successful like the marketing campaign, public relations and government relations.
Other evaluation strategies to determine if the campaign accomplished its objectives on
public awareness would be to distribute a survey to the local community who would
have a direct impact of the composed free-source mural wall in their community. The
survey would help determine:
o The level of awareness the campaign had
o Who the stakeholders are
o Whether the community thinks the wall is a good concept
o Figuring out who the local artist are
The results of the survey would be helpful in finding out community views on the open
mural wall and useful in informing citizens about what is happening in their
neighborhood.
Evaluation After the Campaign
Evaluation strategies that will be put into place after our advocacy campaign will be to
figure out the scale of awareness of the campaign to the local community, government
representatives and the general public of the city of Edmonton. One evaluation process
will be to research the content analysis of the campaign through the media/ social
media by identifying the positive or negative coverage the campaign received. This
information will also include the examination the comments from the media and the
general public into positive and negative feedback. Also determining the specific
number of mentions in the media/ social media to measure public awareness will be
done by collecting media clippings and other mentioning; this will aid in gauging the
level of success of the campaign.
In respect to evaluating how the campaign dealt with both intended and
unintended consequences of the turnout of the open-source mural wall is another
process of evaluation that will be explored by monitoring the graffiti vandalism crime
rates within the community. The main information that will be gathered will be to answer
the question of did graffiti around the wall and neighborhood increase or decrease
while it was in place? Our plans for evaluating these outcomes for our campaign
strategy is to create a documentation and monitoring system for the area surrounding
the open-source mural wall, at the Grant MacEwan University for the arts. The
immediate and surrounding area will be monitored by collaboration between the staff at
MacEwan University, Edmonton Capital City Clean-up and the Edmonton Police
Service. These are the three groups that will be partaking in the evaluation process.
The staff at MacEwan University would monitor and document the activities of
the open-source mural wall all year round. The university would incorporate their
security staff as well as develop a program within the school to oversee and safeguard
the activities on the wall. The security staff would be the enforcement behind the rules
of the wall, such as:
o Inappropriate or offensive language or visuals
o Racial slurs
o Gang related symbols
o Tags/ Vandalism
The universitys graffiti program would have the responsibility of documenting
graffiti not only on the open-source wall, but the overspill of graffiti on other surfaces.
These documentations would be shared with Capital City Clean-up and the Edmonton
Police Service as to help reduce the vandalism and implicate the vigilantes; therefore,
helping the surrounding communities reduce crime levels of graffiti vandalism and
improves the revitalization of the neighborhood.
The campaigns the most influential change will come from if the campaign
showcased an impact or change to government policies on graffiti vandalism.
Evaluating how the knowledge, attitudes, and actions of policymakers have changed
during the course of the campaign will be insightful for future projects. With any changes
to the policies on graffiti the bylaws need to be improved to be up to standards.
Evaluating the accomplishment of the trial open-source mural wall at CFAC will
determine the success of the campaign because it will move forward the long-term
goals of the campaign. The long-term goals are to implement a one new open-source
mural wall every year in high crime graffiti vandalism communities and the evaluation of
success of the trial wall depends heavily in gaining support from the public and
government representatives.
TIME FRAME
Time Frame Tasks to be Performed
September 2013
April 2014
Planning starts; Hold meetings with external stakeholders (Business
Revitalization Zone, Edmonton Arts Council, Local community
league, Edmonton Police Service)
January 2014 Permission from the City of Edmonton granted
February 2014 Start social media campaign
May 5, 2014 Call for volunteers
June 14, 2014 Volunteer Roundup/Orientation
Jul y 1, 2014
Hand out survey to surrounding neighbourhoods inquiring about
views towards the graffiti walls
August 10, 2014 Media release; Finalization of the Grand Opening Project details
September 2,
2014
First day of school; Letter published in the Griff; Posters are placed
around all MacEwan campuses
September 21,
2014
Grand Opening of Mural