“I hope you’re going to repaint the whole thing”, a stranger snapped as she nuzzled into her coat and flippantly gestured to the tunnel walls around us. This indiscriminate rejection of the graffiti and street art covering them cut through the intentional curiosity and careful consideration of the colour, composition and layering of the pieces that we had carried all afternoon. I recruited Billy Cook to photograph street art and graffiti in our rural hometown of Ringwood, and this was our final location.

I have crossed an ocean
I have lost my tongue
from the root of the old one
a new one has sprung

Epilogue, by Grace Nichols - The Fat Black Woman’s Poems