Political Palimpsests

Abstract

Chapter 4 turns to ephemeral forms of public art, including posters, murals, and graffiti. This chapter occupies is at the very heart of the book. Connecting urban and visual studies with political and oral history, it suggests that ephemeral forms of street art allowed santiaguinos to open new spaces for political debate in the city center, factories, and shantytowns alike. Ephemeral forms of public art helped urban residents fashion both an innovative language of political debate and an alternative, inclusive geography of political participation. They transformed city walls into arenas of dialogue and brought their viewers into a space of wider political analysis. In fact, the political significance that posters, murals, and graffiti held was rooted in their very ephemerality. Meant to last for an hour or a day, they were often ripped or painted over, and new attempts were layered over older pieces, transforming city walls into palimpsests of political debate. They generated a visual style that allowed a host of actors to enter into public political debate and articulate an intricate, ever-changing political discourse. They ultimately remade the city into a political arena and rewrote the terms and limits of political citizenship in the post-war period. Street art, in short, simultaneously constituted and commented on a public sphere of political debate that was rooted in urban practices of occupation and appropriation.