Ankara has been home to some of the most original and creative street art for over a year. One spring morning in 2010, Ankara residents awoke to find that one of the major road signs in the busiest junction of the city had been altered: the sign directing the traffic to Gazi Osman Paşa was replaced with Tosun Paşa, the cult leading character of a 1970s comedy film.

Those responsible for the alteration were the KÜF Project, an underground collective street art movement, whose subsequent work included the re-imagining of the Pac-Man arcade game by turning pavement barriers into pac-dots by spray-painting them yellow, and accompanying them with cut-outs of Pac-Man and one of his enemies, Blinky.

In their manifesto, the group maintains that, “what people see when they go out where we live is just buildings, pavements, signposts, roads and street lights. Not only does this greyness move people away from visual intelligence, but it also creates a monotonous perspective in the human mind. People who use the streets to commute only look at their steps.” The aim of the project is “to destroy this monotony, to make people look around and be aware. It is a riot.” KÜF Project does not want “to pollute the streets,” but “to colour them with dormant energy.”

The members of the KÜF seek to maintain their anonymity, not only for legal reasons, but also due to their attitude towards collective action. They explain that “the idea behind the formation of the KÜF Project is to set aside people’s egos and identities for something bigger, for something collective. We do not want to define KÜF with people, but with what we do and how we take action.”

The group uses stencil graffiti, sticker art and street installations “to add some colour to a city associated with monotony and bureaucracy.”

How many people make up the KÜF Project?

“There is the core team who initiated the idea. But other people are involved in the works, and some works require as many as ten people.” Can others become part of KÜF, then? “It’s not really desirable to extend the group in order to maintain its anonymity. But if we can inspire the emergence of other projects, other groups in the form of KÜF, we will have accomplished what we have set out to do: inspire people to own their city, and to look at it in a new light.”

Do you believe that street art is becoming an inspirational force, a popular form of art in Turkey?

“Perhaps only in Istanbul. The district of Beyoğlu is a place where tens of subcultures come together, exchanging ideas and energies, and street art is a way for these subcultures to express themselves and relay their messages. Hopefully in Ankara and perhaps other cities as well, street art will find a home as an established culture.”

But can KÜF’s work, a sign of harmless rebellion to many, be considered vandalism?

“Since the beginning of the street art movement, there has been a debate about whether it’s a form of artistic expression or an attack on public spaces, on people’s neighbourhoods,” says Sinan, a former graphic design student and a street artist, who is now working in an advertisement agency. “I was unlucky to have been caught by the police years ago, which eventually stopped me from taking part in this kind of art.”

Sinan remembers art critics discussing graffiti in London’s Tate Modern years ago, and debating whether it is “glorified vandalism or a legitimate cultural movement.” “It is a discussion that will never be resolved as long as you damage public property. That’s why I think KÜF’s Metropolitan Municipality project was a bit too much, likely to be offensive to many. There should be a line. And it’s not clear who should draw it, and where.”

The Metropolitan Municipality project is perhaps the most ambitious and controversial work of the KÜF project, removed almost immediately upon its installation. It was a urinal installed at the entrance of a major underpass, over the giant tiles that the collective believes have turned the area into a giant bathroom.

According to KÜF, their aim is not to provoke. One of the members says, “the urinal was the high point of provocation for many, while the more innocent Tosun Paşa could be provocative to others.” ‘Can artistic intent be an excuse?’ is the question that hangs over the heads of generations of street artists. And since the artists have unanimously responded “yes” street art, and hence KÜF, is probably here to stay.