Palimpsest
Palimpsest: a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. Something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form.
Graffiti: writing or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a wall or other surface in a public place.
I was born and brought up in Northern Ireland, reared amongst the scribbled, scratched and sprayed markings of the Irish Troubles. To the poet, Louis MacNeice, they are “purblind manifestoes, never-ending complaints,” declaring, “Up the Rebels, To hell with the Pope, And God Save – as you prefer – the King or Ireland.” In Northern Ireland, graffiti draw up the battle lines and mark the territories of political, religious and tribal identity. The formative experience of growing up there has left me with a fascination with how people everywhere seem to find a way to express themselves in public with painted words and pictures. And how those words and pictures are eroded by time and the elements, and by overprinting and over-painting to create unique documents, palimpsests of life in a particular city, on a particular day and at a particular moment in its history.