Censura e street creativity

Abstract

This paper argues that censorship plays a leading role in street creativity. It also explores how the borders between legal and illegal vacillate within the complex relationships between institutions and street artists. Street creativity is defined as any iconographic production displayed in the public arena, either commissioned or not, regardless of the media or technique employed, and abstaining from any aesthetic or artistic judgment. The study is based on pieces found in 2014 in Italian, French, German and English cities. It focuses on their particular location, the meanings of the figures and/or texts, and the doers’ motives, if known. Several forms of censorship stimulate serve as catalysts for street creativity: first of all the regulation of visibility in the urban environment, and the orders and prohibitions implied by this environment. Doers also denounce the authorities’ lies, either by depicting the censored truth or doing artivism. Other seminal inputs are the thrill of transgression, the desire to comunicate with people and the underlying awareness of the transience of life.