Location 4: Ian Potter Centre NGV

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Otherwise known as Federation Square is located adjacent to St Paul’s Cathedral and across the street from Flinders Street Station. As a mixed-use development that highlights local art, plays and also hosts local gatherings for events such as protests and festivals there is no Street art in the area. You can search all over the open space area and won’t find a single writing. This may be because of it vast surveillance and its open structure. Interesting enough it is just across the street from Melbourne’s most famous graffiti laneway Hosier lane. The Broken window theory simply states that one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing (Wilson, Kelling, 1982). The same is assumed with graffiti. An area with an uncanny amount of graffiti will typically be subject to more graffiti and other crimes because people assume that no one cares about these areas and that it will be “fun” to deface more property. This idea is one of the main reason places like this one are constantly being cleared of graffiti. By making sure that the place doesn’t look blighted will cause people to generally refrain from defacing it, conversely Federation square is almost completely vacant and so are the recusants and stores in it.