Graffiti has been an integral part of Philadelphia culture since the late 1960s with the city being hailed as one the birthplaces of the modern graffiti movement. Two friends Jeff Hamby and Devin Fitchwell collaborated on a magazine series dubbed Absolute Trash which celebrates the city’s unique culture and explores the rare sights, like hidden and closed subway tunnels, to give you a peak at the rich history this city has to offer when it comes to street art. I sat down with them to talk about their installation at the Free Library on Parkway Central and their place in carving their own names in Philadelphia’s rich history.
Jeff Hamby started Absolute Trash during his junior year of high school in 2017 in Westchester, NY. There he would attend zine shows and trade with people, while also communicating with the graffiti scene in online forums such as 12 Ounce Profit and reaching out via Instagram. When he first started, Absolute Trash was mostly just photos of walls he took without commentary on anything he saw.
“Going to like zine fairs and still just kind of trading people my bad zines, but still getting stickers and stuff from people all over the place was kind of actually the main thing I got out of it because I didn’t really make any money, people just weren’t buying any of it. So it was just a cool, informal trading economy thing that was probably what I was most stoked up on and getting to connect with people more that way,” – said by Jeff Hamby.
Devin Fitchwell, a photographer based in Philly, originally from Maryland, and Jeff met through their friend Will back in 2019. They were both students at the time at Temple University.
“I don’t know, when I by the time, you were doing Absolute Trash, it was like, kind of like firmly Philly graff survey, as you were saying, like what’s still running… but it was still like, what is accessible confinable graffiti. It’s a lot about lurking, which is a big thing for people that write on stuff, is finding old stuff. Probably when you met me I was working hard in archive too, which played a role in my interest in what you do. Especially because a lot of the first photo stuff I made didn’t rely on just pictures I made. It was more like pictures as notes you know, not really about the ownership of single photos,” – said by Devin Fitchwell.
Absolute Trash had their first events in Philadelphia at the Foto Club lounge in Port Richmond. They were more informal events that Philly punk scene DIY coordinator Jim Shomo helped put together for Jeff.
“I guess the idea was just trying to get different homies, you know, have their own pictures and stuff on different parts of the wall up in their venue space, but it wasn’t really a super cohesive thing. It was just kind of a place to get people together to hangout… Luke made a video edit for it that was really cool and Devin made a slideshow with his pictures that ended up being in his newest book that we also did there… it was more than just ‘come here and buy this and you get a beer.’ It was like, ‘come here, look at stuff and people talking to each other,’”- said Jeff.
While Jeff has been away for most of this year due to attending graduate school in Europe he pondered the future of Absolute Trash and its place in Philadelphia. Coincidentally, after a story he had posted on the magazine’s instagram, Suzanna Minska of the Free Library of Parkway Central reached out to him about doing an installation at the library. Jeff reached out to Devin to collaborate on this effort and Devin began attending meetings on behalf of the both of them.
“So we had sat down and what she relayed to me it not only that she was excited and had some personal connections to the material, but also presented the library’s archive… we didn’t know what to do at first, but after we combined our brains together and designed these two six foot by ten foot collages that I used material from the Absolute Trash issue and also wanted to match it visually, because it’s an all black and white zine and that’s kind of what we landed on,” – said Jeff.
The event held on August 22nd attracted older members of the graffiti group ICP, along with many younger people interested or active in the community and featured the operator of the urban archives at Temple, John Petitt as a speaker.
“It’s super important that a city institution is hosting a research display that celebrates what is still classified as vandalism… but then is very much a practiced and respected for the most part, folk art… the fact that it’s like it has visually survived with some evolutions and shifts in the last handful of decades, but began as you know, people just wanted to put their name everywhere, but then became a regimented, like staple style of Philadelphia. And, I don’t know, people might not know there’s a pride and protected element to it in a lot of ways,” – said Devin.
You can check out the Absolute Trash installation at the Free Library of Parkway Central now through October 31st, 2025, where there’s a loner copy of the 22nd edition of the magazine along with an abbreviated video segment.
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