Frankston has long held onto a reputation larger than life as a suburb of strugglers in the south-east. It's in period of transition. The Big Picture Festival established in 2018 has transformed the city streets. Where street and graffiti artists have chance to paint multistorey buildings in a attempt to revitalise the streetscape. However this comes at a cost. Graffiti usually pioneers the places that make street art socially and culturally acceptable whether it be Newtown in Sydney or Fitzroy in Melbourne or Hobart in Tasmania. A boom in street art is often followed by a squeeze in graffiti. Suddenly tours for street art pop up in Frankston where graffiti has long been ignored, misunderstood and left with neglected interest. Here we argue graffiti is under-valued and under-appreciated and often becomes victim to street art. In saying that many places where street art can flourish, graffiti rarely reaches. Murals that stand two to three stories high have Buckley's chance of seeing a lick of paint unless you live in Sao Paulo, Brazil where height is no limitation.
The other aspect of change is development and proposed high rises in the Frankston CBD with waterfront views of Port Phillip Bay. What the residents have dubbed the Great Wall of Frankston. The approved high rises that will tower over the existing buildings will dominate and change the landscape. The Frankston Door Centre currently abandoned and in limbo before construction the site lays as a relict of a former era. These places become graffiti destinations. Just like the derelict art deco baths in Hobart or the Collingwood Silos years of inoccupation of this Frankston relict gives rise to art before gentrification inevitability swoops in. Over 14 years of accumulated graffiti history here. Go back through street view and you'll see.
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