A bit more than a year ago, we did something a bit weird.
We took a few cans of spray paint and we went out on the street. Not to paint a mural. Not to make art for art’s sake. We went out to paint the potholes on a road that the municipality had been ignoring for months. Maybe years. Who can count anymore.
Yes, you read that right. We painted the holes.
Why would anyone do that?
Two reasons.
The small reason: we wanted the holes fixed. People were destroying their cars on that road every single day. We called the municipality. Nothing. We sent emails. Nothing. The usual complaints in the usual Facebook groups went exactly nowhere. So we tried a different language. The language of paint and visibility. If they will not see the hole, we will make sure they cannot not see it.
The big reason: we wanted to show people that you can actually do something. That cursing the government on the bus, cursing the mayor at dinner, and cursing destiny at the kitchen table does not fix a single hole. Action does. Even small, weird, slightly silly action.
“Nothing will change”
That is what some people told us before we started.
“You are wasting your time.” “Nobody cares.” “This is how it is here, my friend, nothing will ever change.”
I get it. I really do. Apathy is the cheapest defense mechanism we have. If you decide in advance that nothing works, you never have to feel disappointed when something does not work. You also do not feel anything when something does work, but that is the trade-off some people pick.
We did it anyway.
What actually happened
A few things, in roughly this order:
- People walking by stopped, took pictures, and laughed.
- Local media picked it up.
- The municipality (surprise) fixed the holes within a couple of weeks.
- A few neighbours who told us “nothing will change” went quiet. A few said “OK, but this was a fluke.”
And then, Sofia
Here is the part I like most.
A few weeks ago, on a street in Sofia, Bulgaria, the same thing happened. Different city. Same idea. People went out, found a pothole that the municipality had been pretending not to see, and made it impossible to ignore. Spray, camera, and a bit of noise. Enough to turn a hole in the asphalt into a story.
This time the TV showed up. A real crew. A real segment. The hole, the bright paint around it, the smiling neighbours, all on the morning news. The municipality, again, suddenly remembered that road existed.
Do I know the people who did it?
Let’s say I am not surprised. Let’s say ideas travel. Let’s say they travel through articles, through conferences, through coffees, and sometimes they travel from one painted hole on one street to another painted hole on another street, in another country, a year later. Let’s say I might have a personal reason to smile at this particular news segment.
I will not say more than that.
The point is not who did it. The point is that someone did. Someone watched, took the idea, made it their own, and went out on their own street.
That is how this is supposed to work.
The campaign was not really about potholes
The potholes were the excuse. The real campaign was against something much harder to fix than a damaged road. It was against the belief that ordinary people cannot move the system.
You can. Not always. Not predictably. Not on the timeline you want. But you can.
So here is the playbook, if you want one:
- Pick something small. Not the whole broken system. One pothole. One sign. One absurd rule.
- Make it visible. Spray paint, photo, video, a sticker, a banner. Something the people in charge have to either fix or explain.
- Get one friend. Just one. Two people is already a movement when most people are doing nothing.
- Expect the “nothing will change” crowd. They will show up. Smile at them. Keep going.
- Document it. So the next person sees that it worked, and tries something of their own.
A word about ARTivism
This pothole story is not a one-off. It is part of something bigger that we call ARTivism.
ARTivism is a collective. The idea is simple. Art is not only for galleries. A pencil, a brush, a camera, a sticker, a song, a poster, these are also tools of change, not only of decoration. We try to show people, by real examples, that you can use whatever creative skill you already have to push the world a little.
You do not have to wait for permission. You do not have to be a famous artist. You do not have to have a budget.
Our slogan is short and we mean every word of it:
With one small pencil you can change the world.
That is not a poster line. That is the whole strategy.
If you want to see more examples of art-driven change, take a look at our exhibition SystemErr0.
One last thing
A pothole on a road is a pothole on a road. But a pothole sprayed bright, photographed, shared, and laughed at, is something else. It is a small proof that the citizen and the system are not as far apart as we like to think.
You can do this. Not for every problem. Not every time. But more often than you believe right now.
Some people will say nothing will change.
Do it anyway.
