Allan Andre woke up at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning this past July feeling inspired. He left his bed and made his way to Ottawa\u2019s graffiti-covered Tech Wall at the corner of Bronson Avenue and Slater Street.<\/p>\n
There, he spent the day\u00a0painting a memorial to Sandra Bland, a black woman who died in a Texas jail earlier that month.<\/p>\n
Less than 24 hours later, his work was defaced. \u201cALL LIVES MATTER,\u201d declared the vandal in large, block letters in white paint, covering Andre\u2019s mural.<\/p>\n
For Andre, an Ottawa-born visual artist, the vandalism didn\u2019t come as a complete surprise.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it wasn\u2019t going to last forever,\u201d he says. \u201cDeep down, I wanted to see: Is Ottawa bigger than that? Will they leave it alone? I hoped they\u2019d leave it alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then they ended up doing it,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n