Fighting graffiti with graffiti: street art comes to Limassol

The writing is on the wall…and on ten electricity authority transformer boxes scattered across Limassol. It is brightly coloured, spray-painted, with a swirling scrawl that can only mean one thing: graffiti. But this is no act of vandalism—it’s part of a new initiative to beautify urban Cyprus.

These street art boxes were installed by the Graffiti Friends Club, a subgroup of the non-profit City Friends Club, which formed in 2023 with the goal of dealing with illegal graffiti in Cyprus. It aims to replace vandalism with art.

Graffiti, the thinking goes, sure has potential to spoil cities—but street art can also make them more beautiful.

“We hope that those who currently make unauthorised inscriptions will be encouraged to create beautiful images in designated areas,” said Anna Gubareva, president of City Friends Club.

The strategy is simple. Graffiti artists will not deface graffiti. So, Graffiti Friends Club commissioned Ivan Milchev, the founder of Zograff Studio, along with the Zograff Art Collective and artist Emil Stasovskiy to paint the EAC boxes with attractive, colourful street art. For the most part, this approach has worked. Vandals hold back.

And all the street art has a green theme from a couple holding the world to foxes gambolling on a hillside with the sea in the background.

“It is already evident that plain white transformer boxes attract vandals, whereas those with beautiful graffiti are left untouched,” explains Gubareva.

This “beautiful graffiti” connects to another core principle of the group, which is celebrating the culture of street art. Cleaning graffiti does not have to lead to a sterile cityscape. Some 20 urban murals, painted by local and foreign artists, helped them realise this vision in 2023 at the Revive Festival.

Looking forward, the Graffiti Friends Club wants to bring this art to other parts of the island. Gubareva said: “We hope this project will expand beyond Limassol to other cities in Cyprus.”

The writing is still on the wall, but now it is a bit tidier, more mild, even wholesome. Moral of the story: your nearest transformer box might be in line for a makeover.