Te Papa denies graffiti link

Te Papa has defended its weekend workshop for young children, after it was accused of running a graffiti-promoting exercise.

It was outrageous the government-sponsored Te Papa was giving free lessons on how to "learn to write in funky fonts" Newmarket Business Association head Cameron Brewer said yesterday.

It sent out all the wrong messages and showed very poor judgment,

Today, Te Papa said the workshop did not teach children how to write graffiti.

The graffiti workshop was a free event designed to encourage a younger audience to discover different uses of calligraphy, Te Papa's marketing director Paul Brewer told NZPA.

"The little marketing poster inside the building referred to the word graffiti but that was only because that's the word that children are more likely to understand and relate to.

"The exhibition was a way of making a very grownup exhibition relate to children."

Thirty-five young people attended. They were taught about different types of lettering and how to add colour to express emotions around words.

They then designed their own words on pieces of paper which were put on display for the day in our new interactive exhibition "Our Space", he said.

"The kinds of words and phrases the children wrote included `I love New Zealand', `Peace' and `I love my family'."

The workshop taught the children to respect writing and find "creative ways of doing beautiful calligraphy and type and colour".

It had absolutely nothing to do with encouraging them to do graffiti "in any way whatsoever", he said.