This study examines the waves of graffiti that occur before, during,
and after a conflict—important tools of political resistance that
make protest visible and material. Graffiti makes for messy
politics. In film and television, it is often used to create a sense
of danger or lawlessness. In bathroom stalls, it is the disembodied
expression of gossip, lewdness, or confession. But it is also a
resistive tool of protest, making visible the disparate voices and
interests that come together to make a movement. In Conflict Graffiti,
John Lennon dives into the many permutations of graffiti in conflict
zones—ranging from the protest graffiti of the Black Lives Matter
movement in Ferguson and the Tahrir Square demonstrations in Egypt, to
the tourist-attraction murals on the Israeli Separation Wall and the
street art that has rebranded Detroit and post-Katrina New Orleans.
Graffiti has played a crucial role in the revolutionary movements of
these locales, but as the conflict subsides a new graffiti and street
art scene emerges—often one that ushers in postconflict consumerism,
gentrification, militarization, and anesthetized forgetting. Graffiti
has an unstable afterlife, fated to be added to, transformed,
overlaid, photographed, reinterpreted, or painted over. But as Lennon
concludes, when protest movements change and adapt, graffiti is also
uniquely suited to shapeshift with them.
Les mer
From Revolution to Gentrification
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780226815671
Publisert
2022
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Chicago Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter