300 pages Edited by Olivier Scuro 27 x 21 cm Language: English and French Hardback Publisher: Sabotage Editions 2025
When France prepared to bury its most iconic trains, Opak refused to let them disappear in silence. Painted Graves Vol. I retraces the moment a generation of writers, pushed out of the yards in 2001 and hunted by the legal system, returned more than a decade later to give the legendary petits gris a final blaze of color before their extinction.
Told as a raw, fast-paced logbook, Olivier Scuro’s first volume documents this farewell mission and the roots of the movement that shaped it, reaching back into the charged atmosphere of 1990s railway graffiti. Through rich archival material and never-before-seen photographs, the book celebrates the work of Opak, Inxs, Honet, Pum, Fancie, Riot, Sime, Milk, Poes, Chill, Acid79, Skeme and many more.
A journey through forgotten depots and disappearing steel, Painted Graves captures the adrenaline of urbex, the weight of nostalgia, and the relentless drive to leave a mark, even as the trains themselves are headed for the graveyard.
