Huge graffiti artwork appears at South Fremantle Power Station

A jaw-dropping artwork at the foot of the abandoned South Fremantle Power Station as big as the decrepit heritage building itself has sprung up as part of a collaboration of several Perth artists.

The giant piece of street art which says “It’s for us” has been painted on the flat concrete area between the station and Robb Road.

Graffiti artist Doofus released images of the work over the weekend, which can only be properly read from the sky, crediting 13 other artists and organisations for coming together to create it.

Doofus released the photos with a quote from New York street artist Skeme, taken from the 1983 American documentary “Style Wars”,which illustrated his ethos around graffiti and an exclusion of wider public audiences.

“I don’t care about nobody else seeing it or the fact if they can read it or not,” Skeme said.

“It’s for me and other graffiti writers, that we can read it. These other people who don’t write, they’re excluded. I don’t care about them, you know? They don’t matter to me. It’s for us.”

The Perth Street Art and Graffiti Instagram account said “It’s for us” had many meanings.

“To the writers who frequent it, to the people who take photos of the ageing infrastructure, to the people who walk their dog past and admire it, to any government or developer that wants to take it away or change it — just remember it’s for us,” it said.

The wall between the giant mural and the power station is also covered with a gallery of street art works.

Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt said the impressive work should be kept, alongside the rest of the graffiti, in any future redevelopment of the building which was operational for 34 years and has been abandoned just as long.

“The South Fremantle Power Station is an extraordinary heritage-listed building in which the layers of graffiti and street art now form a key part of its story and history,” he said.

“Both should be retained and celebrated in the building’s future and hopefully public use.”

The power station falls into the boundaries of the City of Cockburn but Mayor Logan Howlett said he was unaware the piece had been produced.

Cockburn’s local government wants the crumbling building to be made safe and opened to the public instead of continuing to deteriorate.

The building is a hotspot for graffiti artists who are able to get by broken fences into the area which is usually off-limits to the public.

The site is owned by the State Government through Synergy.

Landcorp devised a plan in 2014 which advocated for a total reconstruction and restoration to make a new residential development.