COLUMBUS, Ohio — Alicia Jean Vanderelli owns and operates The Vanderelli Room, an art gallery in Franklinton near downtown Columbus.
Vanderelli has had the space for more than eight years. Her artists paint different murals on the building to highlight social issues and celebrate inclusion and diversity.
“We’re responsible, we’re the storytellers. We’re the ones who change the world,” Vanderelli says “It’s a beacon of hope. It’s a beacon of light. It’s a safe space.”
Vanderelli says that her safe space was vandalized Friday evening in what she is calling a hate crime. Several artworks on and off the building, including a Black Lives Matter memorial, were defaced with spray paint.
“I collapsed to the ground…it destroyed my heart, it destroyed me, “ Vanderelli says.
The artist behind the Black Lives Matter mural, Katie Golonka, says she is horrified for the community, the people on the mural that were defaced and their families.
Other artists say it’s an attack that hits close to home.
“It feels personal because I’m a minority in so many ways. This is an attack on minorities,” says Roughitayou Rugy, a Columbus resident and an immigrant from Africa.
Six-year-old Mischa says she wishes the people who vandalized the artwork would have conversations with the artists instead of destroying their work.
The community raised thousands of dollars through GoFundMe. They’re working to rebuild the mural with a special overcoat that will protect the artwork from being defaced again.
Vanderelli says the vandalism act reminded her to never stop using art as a form of social justice to dismantle hate in Columbus and throughout the world.
