Street Art Research Articles

Capitalist and anti-capitalist placemaking through street art

ABSTRACT Street art can function as a tool of placemaking. It shapes how we experience, move through, and attach meaning to space, as well as how space is territorialized and bounded. Street art can be a restructuring force that changes how a space is legible or interpretable to its users, how it is used, how it is experienced, and how it forms a territory with insiders and outsiders. But how street art does this along with what kinds of impact it has varies dramatically from neighborhood to neighborhood. More specifically, the relationship between street art, placemaking, and capitalism is remarkably different in different neighborhoods. Street art can support capitalist placemarketing, or it can work toward secession from the capitalist landscape, either by preserving or by creating alternative place identities. I use three different neighborhoods in New York City—The Bowery, El Barrio, and the South Bronx—as case studies for each of the three phenomena, respectively. I end by examining a paradox that street art faces: explicitly anti-capitalist street art is easily coopted by capitalist forces that seek to commodify its aesthetic, so attempts to use street art to combat capitalist appropriations of space often (though not always) backfire.

“Greater than fear”: theorizing affective blockage in social movement rhetoric

ABSTRACT Created by street artist Shepard Fairey, the protest poster, “We the People are Greater than Fear,” emerged as a powerful visual response to the 2016 election of Donald Trump. Though celebrated as a progressive symbol of inclusion, we argue the poster, perhaps unwittingly, reinforces some of the very prejudices it seeks to confront by associating Muslimness with suspicion, foreignness, and fear. Using “Greater than Fear” as a case study, this essay contributes to scholarship combining critical affect theory with rhetorical studies by theorizing affective blockage as a means of understanding the ways affect contributes to the resilience of hegemonic narratives by preventing certain meanings from surfacing. We argue the poster reveals a cautionary lesson about how affect can obscure critique of cultural texts created with progressive intent, inadvertently bolstering softer, more subtle forms of racism embedded in liberal contexts. We also discuss the importance of interrogating rehearsed affective associations that, by virtue of their familiarity, seem normal and acceptable but ultimately reinforce exploitative conceptions related to identity categories such as race, religion, sexuality, class, and gender. We conclude with insights for rhetorical scholars about how affective associations can enable ostensibly liberal discourses while at the same time preventing their critique.

Visual arts as a catalyst for social change: Communicating powerful messages

This study examines the crucial role of Visual Arts as a catalyst for social change, focusing on its potential to communicate powerful messages that provoke thought, inspire action, and foster empathy. By investigating various contemporary art forms, such as street art and digital art this research aims to highlight the ways in which artists harness their work to address pressing social issues and promote positive change. Through an analysis of case studies featuring renowned artists and their impactful pieces, the study illustrates how visual arts can transcend language barriers, evoke emotional responses, and inspire individuals to engage in critical reflection and dialogue. In addition, this research underscores the potential of visual arts to create shared experiences and unite diverse communities around common causes, ultimately fostering understanding and paving the way for transformative societal advancements. In doing so, the study seeks to emphasize the unique and potent ability of visual arts to communicate powerful messages, drive social change, and cultivate a more informed, empathetic, and connected global community by leveraging various forms of visual communication, including linguistic signs and symbols, to convey meaning and provoke thought.

Visualizing erasure: Co‐creating comics and animation from revolutionary street art to Nubian memories of displacement in Egypt

AbstractThis article discusses how Faye Ginsburg's work on Indigenous filmmaking and commitment to shared anthropology inspired us to pursue unconventional forms of visual anthropology adapted to our own ethnographic contexts in post‐revolutionary Egypt. Specifically, we discuss Hamdy's work on the collaborative graphic novel Lissa and Moll's collaborative animation short Hanina. The affordances of these illustrated genres and mediums for collaborative co‐creation with our interlocutors enabled better ways to depict that which is no longer tangibly present yet persists in memories and longings. The specific histories of each media resonated with how the communities sought to represent themselves, a powerful example of what Ginsburg calls “aesthetic accountability.” We also reflect on how comics and animation, through greater anonymity, can help us attain safety as a production value under authoritarianism.

Protecting Street Art and Graffiti as Artistic Works Under Indian Copyright Law: An Analysis

ABSTRACT Street art, known for its temporary nature and presence in public spaces, faces challenges in copyright protection. Despite these hurdles, street art is increasingly recognized as a legitimate artistic expression warranting copyright safeguards. This abstract explores how street art can be protected under copyright law, beginning with its definition and qualification as an artistic work under copyright statutes. It addresses practical and legal issues such as authorship, ownership, and the impact of public location. This study illustrates different approaches to protecting street art through circumstances and some legal precedents. It also examines the role of moral rights and public interest in balancing artists' rights with property rights and urban aesthetics. The abstract proposes legal reforms or policy interventions to enhance copyright protection for street art while maintaining its cultural integrity, contributing to the discourse on the intersection of copyright law and urban art.

Cultural code of a modern regional city: An experience of discourse description (based on street art objects in Tomsk)

Cultural code of a modern regional city: An experience of discourse description (based on street art objects in Tomsk)

Street Art: Dialogues between artistic practices and the community

Introduction: The text focuses on a series of projects developed by Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, which involved local communities in collaborative artistic practices. Methodology: The artistic practices analysed are part of the methodology known as community-based art. The data was analysed by observing these projects and interviewing the artist. Results: Taking two of Vhils's projects that involved community participation as a starting point, we analysed them based on the documents collected, namely videos, photographs and interviews. Discussion: The visual and discursive dimensions of these projects and the information gathered from the artist who mediated this whole process allowed us to access a set of meanings that crossed artistic, social and political domains. Conclusions: The articulation of these domains in the context of artistic processes that require community participation allows their impact to be significantly amplified, since it promotes greater engagement, empowerment and social cohesion in that community.

The urban aesthetics of graffiti murals: reproducing wall space in China’s urban renewal

In China, as in the West in recent decades to a lesser degree, the semantics of ‘graffiti’ have gradually become an alternative term for graffiti murals in urban renewal. Graffiti murals, through various renewal strategies, reproduce the wall spaces of old towns, factories and villages in Chinese urban areas, giving rise to diverse aesthetic attitudes. Taking Guangzhou, China, as a case study, this article utilizes graffiti mural images defined as ‘graffiti’ by people on social media as the basic material. Visual research methods such as photo evaluation and eye-tracking experiments are employed to analyse the aesthetic attitudes and mechanisms of mainstream street art, which in fact differ from traditional graffiti. The study reveals that people perceive different types of graffiti mural spaces in various ways, with a more positive aesthetic attitude towards urban mural landscapes that exhibit aesthetic coherence. Viewers with embodied practice experiences in ‘graffiti’ show stronger aesthetic emotions compared to those who have not visited the case study location. These differences are further influenced by the aesthetic atmosphere of the environment and the aesthetic practices of different subjects onsite, deviating slightly from the spatial aesthetic operational logic of traditional graffiti. From various perspectives on Chinese ‘graffiti’, the visual methodology constructed in this study provides new insights for the aesthetic management of urban renewal.

Street art and place-making of villages: examples of Italian painted villages

PurposeThis study aims to discuss the contribution of street art projects to the place-making of villages and the effects it generates for local stakeholders.Design/methodology/approachA conceptual framework is developed based on the main characteristics of the place-making process, street art, creative place-making, as well as place identity, revitalisation and regeneration. This framework defines a set of thematic categories for the qualitative content analysis of online information, e.g. websites, media and blog posts, as well as in-depth interviews with local stakeholders.FindingsThis research presents the contribution of street art in place-making involving citizens, local businesses and international artists in a collective act to preserve local identity and revitalise and regenerate villages.Research limitations/implicationsThe research is focused only on villages. Cities are not considered in the research.Practical implicationsStreet art projects provide villages with several opportunities, such as stimulating place regeneration and revitalisation, giving new shape and decoration to neighbourhoods and streets and attracting visitors and business. Moreover, street art is commonly used to communicate local history, culture, traditions and social and political facts, helping places to vehiculate their identity and their messages to the next generations. Street art is also used as a part of a place branding strategy.Social implicationsThe village gets the opportunity to exploit the street art value proposition to stimulate the restocking of the place, if the primary stakeholders of the place are ready to invest in the new place identity giving trust to the street art project.Originality/valueStreet art projects contribute to the place-making of villages. They are used to communicate place identity, fostering cooperation between local stakeholders and economic and social development.

A Changing Representation: “Personal Writing” in Artistic Intervention in Chinese Rural Communities

As socially engaged art has played a vibrant role in responding to the crisis of the postmodernist art regime, the current post-Occupy condition has manifested itself in artistic interventions in rural China. In contrast to social writing, which encompasses street art, designers going to the countryside, and industrial empowerment to construct “good cultural governance” or “good cultural taste,” the term personal writing as used here describes a type of avant-garde intervention that has sparked interest in vernacular communities. It provides a socially minded critique of art production as bifurcated from the remaking of everyday social relations and subjectivities, political and cultural possibilities, and the rural Chinese future. Grounded in a contextual analysis of the social turn in Chinese contemporary art and the lingering “rural problem” under post-socialism, this article takes artist Mao Chenyu's Paddy Film project as an example of personal writing and proposes this artist's activisms at Dongting Lake as a specific intervening field, visual ethnography as a method, paddy rice as a distinctive “thing,” and archival practices as a deconstructive pathway that together have promoted the emergence of a resistance narrative in artistic intervention in Chinese rural communities.

The Condition of Contemporary Murals in Sun-Exposed Urban Environments: A Model Study Based on Spray-Painted Mock-Ups and Simulated Light Ageing

The present work investigates the physicochemical stability of spray paints when irradiated with artificial solar light (at spectral range 300–800 nm). This research highlights the importance of understanding the materials used in street art and public murals, recognising them as a significant component of contemporary cultural heritage. By examining the stability and degradation of spray paints toward solar light exposure, the study aims to contribute to the preservation of contemporary murals, which reflect current social and cultural narratives. A physicochemical approach was employed for the study of spray paints’ physical and thermal properties, as well as the effect of specific photochemical ageing reactions/processes. The photochemical ageing results were compared with reference (unaged) samples. Specifically, a multi-technique approach was applied using stereo microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), contact angle measurement, colorimetry, glossimetry, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), UV-Vis spectroscopy, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), and pyrolysis-GC/MS (Py-GC/MS). The photodegradation of the spray paints occurred from the first 144 h of solar light irradiation, resulting in changes in morphology, colour, gloss, roughness, and wettability. Regarding photochemical stability, ageing seems to affect the binders more than the synthetic organic pigments and the inorganic fillers. In particular, acrylic binders showed small chemical changes, whereas the alkyd, nitrocellulose, and styrene binders underwent severe chemical modification. The results suggest that simulated daylight irradiation prompts the migration of additives toward the surface of the spray paint films. In addition, the results of the analyses on the white spray paints in comparison with the coloured paints (from the same manufacturer) showed that there seems to be an active distinct photoageing mechanism involving titanium dioxide, but the whole issue needs further investigation.

„Wer um alles in der Welt ist Pom-Pom?”

AbstractThe article deals with the stories of Pom-Pom, which appeared in Hungary from the beginning of the 1980s, initially in the media network of picture books and animated films. Since the 2010s, the characters have increasingly appeared in the public space of Budapest: first in the context of thematic playgrounds, then in the form of mini-sculptures, and finally street art murals. In terms of time, these events coincide on the one hand with the so-called critical threshold, that transition between communicative and cultural memory, and on the other hand they set in at a point in time initiated by the operational end as well as the incipient building decay of the renowned Pannónia film studios. The examples chosen solely according to the criterion of visibility in public space prove to be representations planned, supported and tolerated by the public authorities.

The impact of patriotic street art works on the psychological well-being of Ukrainian students during the war

The impact of patriotic street art works on the psychological well-being of Ukrainian students during the war

Cultural Tactical Urbanism for Kids in Terang Bangsa School Area, Semarang City

Children are an age group that is vulnerable to becoming victims of accidents on city roads, especially with the use of roads as play spaces. Apart from that, at Terang Bangsa Elementary School, there are still outdoor spaces that are unkempt and abandoned. Previous research shows a close relationship between Tactical Urbanism and children's behavior in urban spaces. However, there has yet to be any research regarding Tactical Urbanism that formulates a design specifically intended for children. Therefore, this research aims to formulate a Tactical Urbanism design appropriate to the culture of Terang Bangsa Elementary School children. Qualitative methods were used to answer the research objectives: observation, literature review, and descriptive qualitative. Based on this method, the appropriate Tactical Urbanism design is to provide a playground that facilitates accustomed games. Tactical Urbanism suggests dividing areas into three: circulation, active, and semi-active. Each zone is equipped with furniture that can be disassembled and adapted to suit the child, and it functions as a play stimulant, relaxer, and barrier. Practical street art is needed to support children's play atmosphere. Implementing this design can change the school environment, motivate school children's activities, and become the school's identity.

Mural as a Living Element of Urban Space: Seasonal Dynamics and Social Perception of “The Four Seasons with Kora” in Warsaw

Street art, with a particular emphasis on murals, plays a crucial role in shaping the cultural DNA of contemporary cities. A prime example of this is the mural “Four Seasons with Kora” in Warsaw, which is dedicated to the renowned Polish artist Kora (Olga Jackowska). This large-scale mural, which combines the artist’s portrait with a chestnut tree motif, visually changes with the season, influencing the artist’s social perception. This study analyzed murals’ functions in social, cultural, and ecological contexts, highlighting their role in informal education and as a platform for social dialogue and integration. Using research methods such as visual analysis and examining comments and reactions on social media, this work aimed to understand how a mural integrates with its surroundings and is perceived throughout different seasons. The results indicated that the mural has become an important element of public space, not only for beautifying the city but also for stimulating social and cultural reflection.

Wspólnotowy potencjał sztuki street artu: efemeryczne wspólnoty wokół efemerycznej sztuki

The article analyzes the phenomenon of street art in the context of its impact on the creation of local or global communities of both creators and audiences. It takes into consideration various forms of expression such as graffiti, community murals, or interventions by individual artists. It examines to what extent the communities formed around artistic activities are lasting and cohesive. Graffiti, as a form of art typical of the hip-hop subculture, represents expressions by groups that are closed and anonymous for the majority of society. Despite strong connections, these groups are usually temporary and may disband after the completion of specific projects. Other forms of street art are typically created by individual artists seeking to develop a unique style. Open, global networks of enthusiasts, activists, and organizations form around them, with the internet and social media serving as platforms used to maintain the connection between artists and their audience. Some street artists (e.g. JR or Swoon) are particularly sensitive to social issues and contribute to forming and sustaining local communities through their creations, even if they do not necessarily belong to them. A specific form of street art are community murals commissioned by a community to enhance its identity and cohesion. Street art and graffiti, therefore, have the ability to create communities on various levels, even despite their informal and ephemeral nature.

El Robaperas (The Pear Thief)

With a point of departure in the creation of an unsanctioned street installation made in Granada, Spain, in 2005, this essay considers some of the central characteristics of street art. It further discusses some of the conditions under which urban environs may become places for autonomous interventions, experiences and reflections rather than spaces people merely pass through.

Sanat Bağlamında Berlin Duvarı’nın İzleri

Germany was the place where the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union took place, planning to establish an ideological domination over the world. After the end of the Second World War, although the city of Berlin remained within the borders of East Germany, as per an agreement between the Soviets and the Western bloc countries. divided. In order to prevent their escape to East and West Germany, the German administration began to build a wall around East Berlin on August 13, 1961, closing all passages to the western part, telling its citizens that they had a freer and more prosperous life. Hundreds of people lost their lives trying to escape to West Berlin by crossing the Berlin Wall until it collapsed on November 9, 1989. The walls of the public space create a political language and a space used against the system. The aim of this study was investigated in the context of the division of Germany, represented by the wreckage of the Berlin Wall, on a social and political plane. The resistance and political discourse function of graffiti in public spaces is examined through the example of the Berlin Wall. Artistic traces with a predominant protest aspect were investigated through literature review and visual concepts. Keywords: Public art, Berlin Wall, War, Graffiti, Politics, Street Art

Opening Spaces for Listening in Art Museums through Community-Based Art

This paper highlights three community-based initiatives that empowered seniors, racialized immigrant women artists and street artists to share their unique perspectives. From 2021 to 2023, Contemporary Calgary and the University of Calgary collaborated with artists, community partners, and the Downtown West neighbourhood to provide programming in a repurposed light rail transit car to vitalize the community through arts. Through exhibitions at Contemporary Calgary, these artists were able to tell their stories. Visitors were able to engage with, listen to, and learn from the artists’ experiences. The programs fostered strong bonds among participants, resulting in ongoing collaboration and support. Drawing inspiration from Silverman’s (2010) concept of the museum as social worker, this paper builds on a model of care in the art musem (Eiserman, 2000) wherein contemporary art museums serve as spaces for marginalized individuals to express themselves and for communities to actively listen and respond.

Street art and the disruption of the expected

One of the most powerful aspects of street art is its potential to disrupt the expectations that we have about certain spaces and also how it urges us to question why those expectations existed in the first place. Street art interventions are often intended to make the viewer think about the space in which the intervention is produced, and how the identity of that space has been formed, along with the normalized behaviours that correlate with that space. This article examines recent examples of street art interventions created by Mobstr, Olafur Eliasson and Selma Selman and places them in contextual lineage with similar spatial interventions by Guy Debord, Christian Philipp Müller, Will Self and Keri Smith which attempt to disrupt the expected usages, experiences and identities of various spaces. Throughout this presentation, it is demonstrated that each of these projects should be considered political acts because they subvert the cultural regulative discourses and established societal hierarchies that exist in distinct spaces.