Compliance
I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few days about the concept of compliance and in particular when it comes to health and safety when you’re working in private and public space.
I’ve been thinking about it a lot as Covid vaccinations are being mandated in particular fields and relating it back to my line of work as an artist creating large scale murals.
Back in the day my friends and I took a lot of risks, in fact we took pride in it. I was never a great climber like many of my friends who scaled buildings, freeway bridges and painted elaborate pieces on ledges barely deep enough for their entire foot. I did spend a lot of time on the train tracks, in active passenger and freight yards and in tunnels or under bridges.
The moment that the graffiti and large mural thing collided for me was roughly around 2009 when I first attended Primary Flight during Art Basel week in Miami. I was just given a lift for the first time and left completely to my own devices - it was a revelation. When I got home I started renting lifts for things and the projects started getting bigger. I wasn’t asked for years if I had even a basic understanding of how to operate this equipment safely.
My friends and I were absolutely wild, standing on the top of the rails 5 stories up to get a little higher. Once I tipped a knuckle boom onto 2 wheels driving off a steep curb - something I know now could’ve catapulted me into the air as far as my harness would allow before it would stop violently, likely hurting me or even killing me.
I have countless stories.
I’ve taken some stupid risks for the sake of ‘getting the job done’ that I think I’m incredibly lucky to have come out from unscathed. In Tahiti I took on a wall another artist had the good sense to turn down because the lift was definitely dodgy and it required working with the boom’s arm vertically, tight between two buildings. On the second to last day we pinched then broke a hydraulic cable because the lift was missing a particular safety feature that allowed the cradle to articulate in a way that could enable that to happen. Being rescued from 6 stories up should’ve been a learning experience but I opted to finish the wall at any cost. Even after the lift was repaired, it was never fully right. When I finished the wall, the artist that had turned down that exact wall gave me the sternest talking to. He said to me ‘What is it going to take to make us take safety seriously? Does someone have to die?”
He was right. And it has happened.
Working at heights is no joke and not only do we need to consider our own safety but the safety of those that work alongside us and people just happen to walk through that space too.
When the Health and Safety legalisation in Aotearoa and Australia was updated about 6 years ago I felt a real pang of resistance. It was my old graffiti writing self thinking “Here they go, trying to squeeze more money out of me and creating loads of unnecessary bureaucracy!” The list of things I need to work commercially in both countries are pretty similar and include:
Public liability insurance cover for 10 million dollars
Site Safe certification (for working on construction sites)
EWP ticket/working at heights certification
Adequate PPE (respirator, gloves, Hi-vis, hard hat and safety glasses on occasions)
Need to provide a Job Safety Analysis including technical data sheets for all materials.
Increasingly some combination of those things are required to work in most countries although the US can still be a little loose due to the cultural attitude that everything comes down to personal responsibility - but you might get sued!
I’ve completed several courses now for working at heights specifically and I can honestly say, knowing what I now know I don’t even think the EWP ticket is stringent enough. You could have zero experience using access equipment and get your qualification in 2 days. A combination of training and years of experience are the best. Doing the refresher courses is worthwhile too because complacency and losing your healthy fear of the risks involved can cause accidents and people can be injured or killed.
So what am I saying here? I’m not a fan of drawing false equivalences but I believe this isn’t that. Mandating vaccination on particular job sites during a never-ending pandemic is a matter of general health and safety - for ourselves and equally importantly the people around us. I don’t think it will be long before proof of vaccination is just another requirement for us muralists on a good number of job sites, especially if you’re working with big developers like Westfield for example. When that day comes I think you’re going to see another really visible fissure within the scene. I think you’ll see some vaccine-hesitant or antivax artists cry victim and call it oppressive. It’ll hurt some people financially and they’ll either buckle to pressure to comply or they’ll double down. I’ve seen a lot of the latter right now and it’s interesting and in my opinion frustrating because I think the framing is weird.
We live in an increasingly polarised world where politics are a zero sum game. People spend a lot of time countering each others views with gotchas and memes and you’re supposed to pick a side - even if some figures that fall on your side of that particular argument are the sort of people you generally disdain. What annoys me about this is the lack of complexity.
Do I believe in people enjoying individual freedoms and autonomy? Yes, as long as they don’t impact the freedom and autonomy of others (or potentially kill them).
Do I think Bill Gates is a shitty person? Yes, it’s pretty likely because he does have more than a little bit of a eugenics bent (obsession with population control and the weird African circumcision programs he funded) and liked hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein who was a genuinely evil person.
Do I think the GOP are embracing authoritarianism and often outright fascist politics? Yes, clearly.
Do I think US politics in general have leaned towards some pretty undemocratic stuff under the governance of either major party? Definitely, I think Obama’s excessive embrace of executive orders (albeit for policies like affordable healthcare) revealed an exploit that Trump then abused. I also think that Democratic base were robbed of a meaningful presidential primary and more or less just told that Biden was their candidate.
I also think establishment Democrats are being complacent to the point of complicity when it comes to prosecuting the people actually behind the insurrections - not just the wacky low-hanging fruit.
Do I think Biden stole the election though? No I do not. Grass roots organisers fought tooth and nail in some key states to prevent the US’ descent into something akin to a kleptocratic/authoritarian dynasty ruled by the Trump family. We know from history that once you allow that to happen it’s very hard to wind things back. Because of the Electoral college and voter suppression it was a very tight race.
Does it bother me to wear a mask? Not really and because aside from the health aspects I believe that being courteous to others is a huge part of having a civil society. I don’t like parading around acting like a complete asshole.
Was I weary of getting vaccinated? I’m human, I have a fairly normal amount of scepticism about a lot of things including the pharmaceutical industry. I have a severe allergy to a really common medication. All things considered though, people have been inoculating themselves against diseases since as early as 200 BC - It’s a huge key to our species survival so far. I’ve had so many vaccines including Tetanus, Diphtheria, Whooping Cough, Rotavirus, Pneumococcal, Influenza, Measles, Mumps, Rubella and Polio. Likeliness is a good amount of you had all of these vaccines before the age of 4 too! Shit, just in the last 8 weeks I’ve had this years Flu/Diphtheria/Tetanus, Whooping cough shots plus two shots of the Pfizer vaccine.
We’re expecting our first baby in just over 8 weeks and I did all that to protect them (and myself) because I could never live with myself if my baby got seriously ill or worse because of a totally preventable disease. Even worse I would feel beyond ridiculous if that happened based on an uneducated belief or towing an idealogical line. That’s the bare minimum I can do to ensure her well being and that of others I come in contact with, especially the most vulnerable in our society.
So when we talk about this concept of personal responsibility I think about society the way I’m expected to operate professionally. When I’m on a project I work super hard to not be negligent. I do my very best to ensure I keep myself and everyone around me as safe as I can within all my possible means. That’s good for everyone involved.
There are rules to operating in a society - as someone who built a career based on breaking rules, There’s a part of me that resents that unavoidable fact. Being personally responsible is not about operating within my own vacuum or idealogical bubble. That is only one aspect of living in this world but it’s out of step with reality to think it’s the only one that matters.