Biel: Silvia Steidle’s Impact on Urban Art and Graffiti Culture

2024-01-14 16:04:18

Published14. January 2024, 5:04 p.m.

Biel: Silvia Steidle promotes graffiti

The former Director of Finance is a liberal-radical who is now committed to urban art.

par

Vincent Donze

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Silvia Steidle lists the tags in Biel.

lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé

The former liberal-radical elected official encouraged their emergence.

lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé

Two crossed axes are the emblem of the bilingual city.

lematin.ch/Vincent Donzé

She directed Finance in Bienne and as such managed municipal buildings. But following her resignation, Silvia Steidle is now committed to promoting urban art. A liberal-radical who looks admiringly at tags and graffiti is unexpected, but not surprising for those who know her.

With the Dome of the Autonomous Youth Center at its center, street art is an integral part of Bienne culture. This is where Silvia Steidle comes in, on a platform describing itineraries, like in Lugano (TI).

Lack of visibility

In her municipal councillor’s attire, Silvia Steidle studied requests from graffiti artists wishing to work on a public building. “It was the time for negotiations, following the war declared by my predecessor Jürg Scherrer,” she explains.

The richness and quality of this universe stood out to him, but also its lack of visibility and support within the institutional culture. “The scene arose, must earn a living… Sèyo is older than me!”, remarks Silvia Steidle.

The UDC candidates

In street art, it is the messages and demands that touch Silvia Steidle. Isn’t that out of line for a liberal-radical? “On the last election posters in Biel, the UDC candidates posed in front of graffiti,” smiles Silvia Steidle.

“To rejuvenate their image, political parties appropriate the tag at the time of elections,” remarks Silvia Steidle. While the City spends 200,000 francs per year to encourage erasures on private buildings, the former elected official will welcome graffiti artist Tarkin to his artistic residence set up in a former distillery in Fleurville (F), on the Saône.

A unique place

The Biel graffiti artist Robbie explained the history of the Biel movement to the “Journal du Jura”: graffiti developed thanks to a unique location: the BTI (Bienne-Taüffelen-Ins) underpass in Biel train station, before its takeover by the CFF. “From the beginning of the 1980s, drawings were implicitly authorized. And even encouraged by certain train drivers,” indicated this pioneer, who has been active since he was 11 years old.

Writing your name is a gesture accessible to everyone, so much so that the signature of a graffiti artist has established itself as the logo of a brand, with a claim: visually, public space does not belong only to those who have money.

The city cleaned

At La Coupole, hip-hop and break dance artists fraternized with graffiti artists, creating an emulation that was matched only by artistic quality, according to Robbie. But when the national exhibition Expo.02 passed, the city was cleaned up, then the fallow industrial zones decreased.

Today, the collective of graffiti artists X-Bros manages a workshop at “X-Project” and works in available spaces, such as construction sites. Illegality no longer characterizes street art: in Locle (NE), blind facades are decorated on the occasion of the “exomusée” and in Crans-Montana, the “Vision Art Festival” colors the gray walls.

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