Erasing the place of dissent: Inscriptions and eliminations of Gezi Park graffiti

Abstract

Regarded commonly and policed routinely as disamenity and vandalism, graffiti nonetheless provide vital accounts of identity, territoriality and contestation. Of proportionate consequence, however, are the means by which societies and states act to deter and remove graffiti and how these efforts correspond with other projects to police a population, activism and dissidence, and public discourse. During and after the Gezi Park protests of 2013, Turkish authorities initiated on‐the‐ground anti‐graffiti actions that resulted in a patchy assemblage of institutional beiges, greys, and other nondescript colours obscuring impacted surfaces, vertical and horizontal, throughout graffitied neighbourhoods. Conspicuous in its visual outcomes but otherwise conforming with the remediation standards of many states, officials went beyond these anticipated measures of removal to also suppress selectively reproductions and disseminations of graffiti imagery and verses. Beyond validating the transgressive potency of graffiti itself, these reactions illuminate further ongoing analyses of both the contestation of public places in and the political climate of present‐day Turkey. In this study, I examine how, within these contexts, state authorities moved from painting over graffiti to situating purposefully dissident spaces both of expression and collective memory to align with the proscribed spaces of sedition and terrorism. Through this analysis, my study of the ongoing Gezi experience contributes to graffiti geographies as it reveals how regimes of policing can extend far beyond public spaces and defaced walls.