The staged event Vandalizations, performed during the opening day of the Kunstvlaai / A.P.I. Festival in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on May 10, 2008, consists of a group of hired actors-hanggroepjongeren (lit. 'hanging group youth' — youth with a largely immigrant background from deprived neighborhoods) that vandalized three parked cars with a selection of tools (knives, hammers, baseball bats) within the timeframe of eight minutes.

The performance was developed in relation to the numerous vandalizations that the festival had suffered over the last couple of years. These vandalizations were ususally caused by forementioned hanggroepjongeren from the neighborhood adjacent to the Westergasfabriekterrein, the location of the Kunstvlaai / A.P.I. Festival. A neighborhood that has recently acquired the dubious Orwellian eponym of prachtwijk, 'beautiful neighborhood', which basically covers exactly the opposite of its socio-economical situation. It is suspected that the hanggroepjongeren perform their annual vandalization of the outdoor projects in order to 'mark their territory' in reaction to the perceived 'alien' occupation of an art festival.

The Kunstvlaai / A.P.I. Festival fails to integrate this recurring phenomenon within its form and content, in spite of its self-proclaimed 'social and political involvement'. Comparable to the reaction of the average citizen, neither the Kunstvlaai organization, nor the artists and artists' collectives involved, are able to analyze and incorporate the excessive violence of these youth. That is, formulating a reaction outside the reflex of calling in the authorities.

With the staged event Vandalizations, the artists Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei and Jonas Staal anticipate the presence of these hanggroepjongeren, even before they would initiate their own actions. This reflects on their intention to open up the discussion of art in relation to current sociopolitical issues, such as the prachtwijken, their deprived inhabitants, and the related frustrations and rituals of vandalization and other physical violence.

The reaction to the staged event — the 'art-oriented' audience immediately accepted the violent performence as an incarnation of contemporary art, while less informed visitors and accidental bystanders immediately sought to inform the police — accurately signaled the problem that Van Gerven Oei and Jonas wanted to address: the current incapacity of society to deal with excessive violence such as manifested by the hanggroepjongeren from a formally artistic perspective.