Yes, really! You can do this and it’s not illegal! I’m not suggesting you can pitch up with your cans of paint and start tagging any available remnant of wall. However, as part of a booked graffiti workshop with a local artist, spray-painting the Berlin Wall is lots of fun for teens and tweens!
Graffiti culture in Berlin
Graffiti culture in Berlin dates back to early 1980s. Today, you will find graffiti everywhere. The authorities have historically prosecuted and fined graffiti artists. However, more recently, the city has commissioned a lot of legally painted graffiti. It has also designated areas (such as the stretch of the original Berlin Wall in the Mauerpark) where anyone can legally paint!
Our graffiti workshop in Berlin with our tweens
We booked our graffiti workshop with Paint Your First Graffiti (Paint Your First Graffiti – Berlin Graffiti Workshop and Tour). I was a bit worried that it might rain on our chosen date, meaning that the experience would not be possible. Sylvain suggested that we booked in for a day at the start of our holiday so there would be chance to reschedule (free of charge) if the heavens did open!
Luckily, although the weather was overcast on our chosen morning in October, the day stayed dry. We met Sylvain at a designated spot in Mauerpark. Sylvain had sent us co-ordinates to find the meeting point through Google Directions and these were pretty much spot on. The group consisted of the 4 of us (our boys were 9 and 11 at the time) and a German family with 2 older teenagers.
In an attempt to temper our ambitions, Sylvain told us to choose a word of no more than 6 letters for our tag. Imaginatively, and to stop arguments between the boys, we ended up with our surname, “Morris”.
Sylvain sprayed the outline of our word in black on the wall. He explained that we should either use warm colours for the word and cool colours for the background or vice-versa. Other than a few brief tips on how to spray effectively, Sylvain then let us loose! After we completed each stage (infilling the word, spraying the background, re-outlining the word, adding shadows and highlights etc), Sylvain would briefly explain and demonstrate and then let us crack on again.
We were all thoroughly enjoying the experience and going a little spray crazy. Towards the end of our session, Sylvain was muttering “less is more” and “don’t overdo it”! As we were running a little low on spray paint, we eventually took his point. We stopped to take some (many) photos of our creation. Our name immortalised on a little bit of history (well at least until Sylvain’s next workshop!).
What next with teens and tweens?
After we had finished, we then spent some time walking along the stretch of the wall in Mauerpark admiring the other graffiti. Stomachs rumbling, we then headed to Konnopke’s Imbiss for a currywurst pick-me-up (see my homage to the currywurst here).
We spent around 1 ½ hours on this experience and we all enjoyed it! This was one of the highlights of our trip and definitely something we will all remember! I would thoroughly recommend spray-painting the Berlin Wall with teens or tweens.
