ONE person’s trash is another’s treasure. And one person’s art is another’s vandalism. This is evident in graffiti-clad buildings over the city, and it is also the issue facing Henry Young and Ernest Jacobs. The pair have been building a “garden of peace” on the Sea Point promenade, close to Sunset Beach, for nearly seven weeks.

“We made this garden for the community. It is a garden of peace. It used to be a toilet for people from the taxi rank, but we decided to make it beautiful and nice for everyone. It used to stink a lot and nobody wanted to walk past here. Now we are just very sad. Very, very sad,” says Young.

On the dawn of the World Design Capitol 2014 (WDC) announcement tomorrow Bulelwa Makalima-Ngewana, Managing Director of the Cape Town Partnership and WDC 2014 bid, says that the line between legal and illegal public art is not always easy to draw, since it is open to interpretation and subject to differing views. Consensus is not easily reached.All artists must get pre-approval for their works to avoid contravening bylaws, says Makalima-Ngewana. But she adds that: “During the World Cup, these bylaws were interpreted in a way that resulted in a more enabling environment for public art. Installations breathe life into public spaces that would normally go unnoticed.”

Last week Monday the garden was raided by Sea Point law enforcement officers. Five bags of trinkets were confiscated, which will now cost them R602 to retrieve.

When People’s Post visited the garden on Friday morning, it was returned to a wonderland once more: a peace garden as the two say, with little figurines intricately arranged between marbles, shells, crabs. Little treasures dug out of garbage bags dangle from branches, whilst smurf figurines peep from underneath flowers.

But on Friday evening the pair’s garden was raided once more, this time coming to an agreement with law enforcement over what they can and cannot have in their “garden of peace.”

According to ward councillor Beverley Schaffer, the meeting between the two with JP Smit, Mayco member for safety and security and two other City Officials, yielded positive results.

“They happily agreed, and even helped law enforcement to remove objects from the garden. The city parks unit also offered them seasonal work. We offered to take them to The Haven Night Shelter, and personally I am going to pay for their ID books, because they can not work without them. This is all about empowering them and getting them real jobs, and they were very happy with the offer.” But on Saturday morning Young and Jacobs did not look overwhelmed. They started making the garden about seven weeks ago, cutting down bushes, planting flowers and even buying four bags of compost. They see it as a means of “giving back to the community in the only way we can, with our hands.”

Jacobs is 53 and has been living on the streets for 43 years, he met Young about 10 years ago on the Promenade. As Jacobs looks at his garden on Saturday morning, rearranging a few flowers, he sighs and says: “We have nothing; we cannot fight against them (law enforcement). We do not have all the power they have. So now we will just leave it as it is.”

Makalima-Ngewana concludes by saying “A happy medium must be found and mapped out in policy form. In this way it will not be so much about ‘illegal’ or ‘legal’ public art from a bylaw perspective, but about a vision of how public art can enrich Cape Town’s public spaces.”