Starting point for this remarkable project was the discovery of a massive image database of graffiti in Eindhoven, a city in The Netherlands known for its technological innovation and industrial heritage including the Philips Factories. The photographs were made between 2005 and 2013, by cleaning companies commissioned to remove graffiti and stickers from municipal property in the city’s public space. As evidence of their work they photographed each site twice – before and after cleaning – which resulted in a staggering archive of 50,000 images. 

When authors Vincent Wittenberg and Wladimir Manshanden stumbled upon this bizarre collection, they immediately appreciated its historic value. The database is a meticulous eight-year inventory of the graffiti and sticker culture in Eindhoven and exposes the city’s struggle with the ambivalence of combatting vandalism versus embracing subcultures. It also documents urban space as a territory where a wide range of people leave their mark.

Sorry for damage done represents three percent of the entire database: over seven hundred chronologically ordered photographs of graffiti and stickers along with their ‘cleaned-up’ counterparts. 

Beer & book presentation of Sorry for Damage Done.
Where MU Containers at Plug-In-City, Strijp S
When Friday 16 June from 17.00 h