Just Do It

Stencil Travels


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Published: Jan 30, 2007

Mon., Feb. 5, 6 p.m., free, Kelly Writers House, 3805 Locust Walk, 215-573-WRIT, www.writing.upenn.edu

Calling all taggers, scribblers, street kids and graffiti freaks—wipe off those wet index fingers and get your spray cans front and center for "Stencil Travels," a talk with filmmaker Caroline Koebel and poet/artist Kyle Schlesinger. Using their new book Schablone Berlin (SPD Books) as a jumping-off point, the pair will examine the practice and politics of stencil graffiti around the world.

Koebel and Schlesinger's research into the populist art, made famous by enigmatic stencilers like Banksy and Borf, was also shaped by their own work in the arts. Koebel, who teaches in the Department of Media Study at SUNY-Buffalo, explores subjects like banned, censored and site-specific art. Schlesinger is the founder of Cuneiform Press, a nonprofit publisher that specializes in handcrafted books from independent writers. The talk will include readings, slides from the book and images collected in cities like London, Toronto, Brooklyn and Warsaw.

"I don't think stencils can change a cityscape for the better any more than I think that a book of poems can improve a language environment," says Schlesinger. "But I understand them both as permissions to break away from the complicity of consumption that mainstream literature and corporate urban planning endorse."