This article examines the ways in which artists seek to transform, and inform their communities in both the individual and broader capacity. Artistic production is used for the purpose of artistic and political transformation. This approach falls within the field of examining the social “other” in a quasi-anthropological model, with the cultural “other” being sub cultures falling outside the dominant culture.
The artist is not perceived as being culturally “other” as they have access to both sides of the situation and gain an ideological patronage as “ethnographer” of a community’s mores and values. Dissident Surrealists from the 1920’ and 1930’s such as Georges Bataille, initiated exploration of cultural “otherness”. Social outreach as culture in action can enhance community groups and economic development. Artists are identified with places in a way that connects identity, politics and site-specific practices, with the authenticity of the one being evoked to bolster the authenticity of the other. Humans have a shared ability to use language in an effective manner in order to be understood and to come to consensus. The shared human condition anchors our folk songs, poems, narratives and stories. This ability to communicate through signs and symbols unites us across our differences and speaks to our shared and individual conditions. Music, song and stories continue to play a role in community based art for social change. This paper examines the use of aerosol art and calligraphy as being the platform from which artists express ideas on political and social issues. It has often been said that many murals expressing such opinions sacrifice creativity for propagandistic utility. Tags – a quick “signature” type of graffiti, are a way for young artists to create a new identity or alter ego in a “figured” world and a place where they can hide behind their tag names. This paper will examine the elements of story gathering, which is not a new technique, presented in a contemporary fashion using aerosol art.
1.1 The artist as Story Gatherer
The process of story gathering is widely used to help create community-based art. Building on the way in which activists work, artists such as Mohammed Ali have given birth to a new approach to deepen the connection between art and social change. This approach represents a natural development of a social justice artist. The spoken or written word is an integral part of community building of all peoples. The telling and receiving of stories is a means by which our need to put forward our view is shared. Anthropologist Laura Nader (1992) believes that conflict resolution is a destructive search for a return to harmony in relationships, a form of social cohesion through the law. It is her belief that people deserve a system that honours harmony and conflict in balance. For Nader, this includes the need for conflict resolution practitioners (whether artists or lawyers) should understand that the guiding principles of their work do not begin with them, but are in most cases borrowed from other cultures and other disciplines (Nader, 1992). Some practitioners use stories as a means to inspire people to embrace change, others want to use stories as a road map to affect change on the issues. Somewhere in the middle are those social change artists who view stories as part of an internal dialogue that helps us to order our world and to theorise about the possibility and potential for change.
1.2 The artist as Producer.
Foster (1996) claims that anthropology has become the lingua franca of artistic practice and critical discourse: culture is read as text and texts as microcosmic cultures. Foster concentrates specifically on site-specific art, noting that it may be temporal or special, a community or an institution, and examines a variety of problems that arise when art tries to follow the ethnographic principles of ethnographic participant/observer. However, the main point of his theory is that reflexivity is essential for the artist, to prevent over-identification with the “other” in a way that alienates and compromises it. Foster weighs the value of too much distance against that of too little and concludes that ideally the works should frame both the artist and the “other” and explore the discursive and historical breadth of their object. This potentially releases the artist from self-contradiction and ideological patronage.
Artistic production is always situated in a localised setting and informed by cultural, social and economic backgrounds. It could be argued that being site-specific is unavoidable in artistic practices. Site-specificity becomes increasingly explicit when cultural practitioners situate their work in the city where backgrounds are highly politicized and outline public debates – dealing with class struggle, gentrification, crime, commercialization and immigration. These same places also inspire our individual endeavours such as ambition, desire, hopes and failures.
1.3 Reading sites.
How does the viewer decipher, decode or just read these places? How is the complexity comprehended? How does the viewer and participant, approach a place and deal with different interests and stakeholders? Can narrative function as a framework to structure layers and backgrounds and have the potential to transform? Can an art space create new dynamics, interpretations and histories? What role does the urban narrative play in the recording of a story and resolving conflict? 1.
Art has expanded into the field of culture which was seen as formerly being the domain of anthropology. The collaboration is most obvious in scenarios of collaborative site-specific practices such as community murals/aerosol art walls. Although only partial engagement occurs with the public and the artist, it is in fact the politics of culture aiding the identity of difference. The collaboration between the artist and the community can never go entirely unmediated. Site- specific work must operate within certain boundaries and constraints whether economic patronage or cultural considerations. This effect will dictate the work to a certain degree in direction, effect and outcome either overtly or in abstract.
1.4 Specific site – Birmingham, UK.
Birmingham rose to significance during the 16th Century for metalworking industries most notably the Birmingham Small Arms Company or BSA. 2
Arms manufacturing became a staple trade and was concentrated in the area known as Gun Quarter. Essentially it became the first manufacturing city in the world with a distinctive economic profile. Its high level of social mobility gave it a broad-based political radicalism and a pivotal role in British democracy. Birmingham’s ethnic make-up has changed over the decades, in particular after World War 11 as it received numbers of immigrants from the Commonwealth countries. Bangladeshis are amongst the largest of those immigrant communities and their arrival dates back to the 17th Century. With the founding of Bangladesh in 1971, significant numbers immigrated to Britain, to join the already established immigrants. Birmingham already has large numbers and many Kashmiris and Sindhis worked in the munitions factories of Birmingham. Many Pakistanis fought alongside British soldiers in both world wars with others contributing to the war effort as skilled labourers including assembly –line workers at the Castle Bromwich factory, Birmingham which produced the Spitfire fighters. 3 Birmingham has one of the biggest Pakistani communities globally with the largest concentration in inner city Birmingham and areas such as Alum Rock and Balsall Heath. Although most Pakistanis can trace their roots back to Kashmir and the Punjab, there is also a large Bangladeshi community in these areas.
1.5 Common Links
How does any city reflect its history and heritage while at the same time incorporating an inclusive approach to the changing demographics that have occurred? As seen in the preceding paragraph, Birmingham U.K. , has had a significant change in its population and some of this is in turn seen in the profile of one of its contemporary artists, Mohammed Ali (www.aerosolarabic.com) Ali has gone on to use his skills in graffiti to spread not only a message about Islam and the Bangladeshi immigrants but has utilized this approach into a more political genre such as his wall on Muntz Street in Small Heath, Birmingham “Free Gaza” 4.
Falls Road in West Belfast, Northern Ireland includes its own IRA murals but an even more interesting one with a message about Palestine 4. This coincides with the message Ali uses in his mural regarding the state of Palestinian people and their plight and likens it to the citizens within that particular city. This approach is aimed at creating an empathy that other forms of art may not do so well. In these two murals alone lies the dilemma of the paradoxical state that is Graffiti. Beauty and ugliness, destruction and creation, no other media attracts such contrary, yet potent reactions, addressing issues of criminality, creativity and cultural control. This would apply not only to the media used but to the message embedded in this form.
1.6 “The White Rose”
Graffiti is an effective tool in expressing support and distaste for certain aspects of life, especially in regard to politics, which can be seen in different periods of time and cultures. Notably the Lascaux Caves in France and the excavations of Pompeii unearthed election drawings and slogans 5. Nazi propaganda was used in WW2 to build up hatred against the Jewish race prior to and during the war. For the German Government using graffiti was extremely clever as the public assumed it was their counterparts that were vandalizing Jewish property not the members of the SA
In Northern and Southern Ireland, rows of Terrace houses can be seen with murals painted on the gable ends expressing the political ideology of the public. This graffiti is incredibly political and used as indicators of the social and political feeling of an area 6. The same goes for graffiti used in Kingston, Jamaica where politics has infiltrated much of life including gang warfare which is responsible for graffiti in the capital. The graffiti on the walls can be used to read streets, almost as one would read a newspaper for current affairs. The overlapping painted words tell of a constant battle of hierarchy, murder and extortion. The two main political parties in the country fuel hatred in the community, using the youth as a tool in a political game and their battles are based on politics 7.
L.A. graffiti from www.sleepylagoon.com
1.7 The art of “con safos”
The basic idea of con safos is is that the person doing the “writing” is saying that they free themselves from whatever slur is written against their name 7. This symbolic graffiti always accompanies names in some way and is important in Mexican culture because of the value associated with names for animate and inanimate objects. This allows Mexicans to put their own name, as well as those of loved ones, on a wall without having to fear that the graffiti will be defaced. This form of graffiti is common amongst Mexican youth as it is a way of expressing an identity safely as well as communicating with one another. Political graffiti has a long history in Mexico. In fact, Mexican murals date back to pre-Columbian times and the modern mural dates back to the 1920’s and 1930’s when Diego Rivera was spreading murals throughout Mexico in the post-revolutionary period (Campbell:2000).Political upheaval can play a significant role in the amount of graffiti and its style immediately after such events. This can also be said of contemporary times and movements such as the now called “Arab Spring and the tags on walls from Tunisia to Syria. Such tags are likely to be done swiftly and carry no claim to being artistic, rather to put out a message which is then often carried by media such as Face book or Twitter or a mobile phone upload.
1.8 Conclusion
Most graffiti falls in such general categories as cultural, political, vandalism, pure art, advertisement and self-identity. The current prevalence of so called “tagging” resonates with incidences of social and political upheavals. This would sit with the idea that personal identity is a key factor underlying the popularity of utilizing this “art form”. The figured word as a tool of identity formation and “shout outs” is relevant as a means for understanding the culture of graffiti. That these markings are clear to other artists and those who have immersed themselves in this culture is an indicator of its appeal.
It may well be the case that graffiti in developed countries such as Europe, United States and Australia has moved from the subversive reputation it had to a general acceptance in mainstream society due to its usage as backdrops for fashion photography, clothing lines and typography in advertising. In developing countries murals are still important because they express a great of information and be visible to thousands of people who live much of their daily lives on the streets. It is still one of the best ways to maintain a public visibility. Tagging which is fast and often furious, has the ability to convey the message “I’m here, look at me” to get the attention of a broader public. Murals still have the power to express a great deal of information, be visible to thousands of people and convey messages that would be very difficult to express in words alone. Human nature requires that our stories are still told and recognition of those tales or at the very least, of our existence. Graffiti should ultimately be recognized as an organic representation of an archetypal human impulse.
Notes
1. Urban Narrative: a round table discussion. http://www.conceptualdevices.com/2008/11urban-narrative-a-roundtable-discussion
2. http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki.birmingham
3. “Untold story of WW2, Reuters http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5621PL20090703?sp_true.
4. http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2009/01/417493.html
5. http://jadecheematypography.wordpress.com
6. http://www.grafitti.org/facq/spigelman_grafitti.htm
7. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bbcworldservice/4624670035/
8. http://www.uwo.ca/visarts/research/2010-11/bat/sattin.htm
Bibliography
Campbell, B. Mexican Murals in Times of Crisis. Tucson AZ. University of Arizona Press. 2000.
Chaffee, L.G. Political Protest and Street Art: Popular Tools for Democratization in Hispanic Countries. Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications. Vol.40. Westport Conn. Greenwood Press. 1993.
Foster, H. “The Artist as Ethnographer” in The Return of the Real. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996.
Marcus, George E. Myers, F. (eds).The Traffic in Culture. Refiguring Art and Anthropology. University of California Press. 1995.
Marcus, G. The Sentimental Citizen: Emotion in Democratic Politics. The Pennsylvania State University Press, Pennsylvania. 2002.
Nader, L. The Cheyenne Way: conflict and law in primitive jurisprudence. Declan, New Jersey. 1992.
Rabonow, P. Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. University of California Press. London, England. 1977.
Dr Suzanne Albanus is a designer who was formerly a lecturer at James Cook University, QLD, Australia in the Bachelor of Communication design degree. She has been involved in many of the public works at James Cook, notably in the Graffiti murals in the Environmental Sciences Faculty, the Central air-conditioning block and the JCU Student’s Club. She assisted in writing the policy on Street Art for the Townsville City Council. She is currently an Academic Advisor at the American University in Dubai, UAE.
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