TronFell

30/11/2021

Street art: Personal creations get political with public messaging
I stopped in my tracks, shocked by something I saw in a Montréal laneway window that had been boarded up in the city’s Plateau neighbourhood. I was looking at caged chickens, with no space to move, one with a tear on the side of its eye. The chickens were behind actual bars that were part of the window with the word “FULL.”

I was looking at street art. The message this piece was conveying about animal cruelty was loud, clear and unforgettable. Here was a very example of the type of art my research focuses on: pieces that promote public dialogue on social justice and can lead to opportunities for learning outside of formal schooling.
I call it “pop-up pedagogy” because the learning is not planned or structured, it just happens. The research I conducted for my dissertation looked at how street art creates potential spontaneous learning in public spaces, and how it can have a role fostering awareness and conversations within communities.

Low literacy, high impact
Looking at street art through an educational lens can be especially important in areas with populations with low literacy, as seen in a study conducted in São Paulo, Brazil.
The impacts of living with low literacy are far-reaching and can affect every aspect of a person’s life. This art form seems to foster discussion allowing those who are marginalized to have their voices heard. It also offers widespread messaging to reach people who may otherwise be excluded from mainstream literacy or media.

My awareness of the power of street art and imagery is something I came to through living with low literacy in my teens and early twenties. When I was 11, my parents moved back to Portugal, where they were from. I spoke solely English but was enrolled in a Portuguese-only school.
I struggled and I dropped out of school at age 16. I would visually “read” things all around me in order to make meaning without the need to read words. Eventually I made my way back to formal schooling. However, that struggle of not being able to communicate effectively, something which affects thousands of Canadians, stayed with me and developed into a passion to study street art through an educational lens.

30/11/2021

Coronavirus murals: inside the world of pandemic-inspired street art
There is no aspect of life the COVID-19 pandemic has not affected – and many of us are finding that cultural events and art online are lacking something vibrant and “real”.

One notable exception is street artists and graffiti artists, who have been busy incorporating COVID-19 into their work. The most prominent of these pieces is Banksy’s homage to the NHS and nurses everywhere called “Game Changer”. It hangs in Southampton Hospital, and will eventually be auctioned off for the NHS.

Street artists all over the world have ventured out into quiet streets and left behind vibrant, thought-provoking, amusing commentary on the crisis. Many echo the same message as Banksy, that it’s the nurses and front-line healthcare workers that are the real heroes in this crisis. This can be seen in the new work of Amsterdam-based street artist FAKE, whose mural “Super Nurse!” in the lead image shows a nurse wearing a face mask emblazoned with the Superman logo.

Others are more critical of politicians; or comically cynical about panic buying, social isolation and the pandemic itself. Below is Bristol-based street artist John D’oh’s take on the idiotic and dangerous statement US President Trump made about injecting disinfectant as a potential solution to a COVID-19 infection.
In a similar vein, Brazilian street artist Aira Ocrespo has depicted Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro has discouraged social distancing and lockdown, and was quoted as saying “So what? What do you want me to do?” when asked about Brazil’s rapid increase in COVID-19 cases. The text reads “Bolsonaro’s mask against the coronavirus”.

30/11/2021

Getting to the (street) art of a year like no other
If there’s one thing everyone seems to agree on, it’s that 2020 was a nightmare of a year. This was the year of political crisis: not just one, but several, one after another.

Street artists have always responded to the political issues of the day by writing, painting and sticking posters on walls. What kind of street art could be seen on walls in 2020?

In the early months of 2020, Australia’s political street art was dominated by the bushfires that incinerated over 17 million hectares of land, destroyed 3,094 homes, and killed 34 people and over a billion animals.

Shocked by the severity and extent of the fires, many people, including artists, wondered whether this was no ordinary fire season. Posters quickly appeared in Fitzroy, simple sheets of paper, each with two news photos. One showed a child in a boat fleeing the fires in Mallacoota on New Year’s Day; in another, firefighters ran through a torrent of burning embers. Between the two images, block capitals stated: “THIS IS CLIMATE CHANGE”.
A few weeks later, climate anxiety continued to motivate street artists: during the Australian Open tennis tournament, a “street sculpture” was glued to a windowsill in Melbourne’s Hosier Lane. Initially looking like a large blob of lime-green ice-cream, a closer look revealed it to be a melting tennis ball, emblazoned with the words .
Soon after the bushfires, the spread of a new coronavirus led to the declaration of a global pandemic. Lockdowns and states of emergency were implemented in numerous countries from March onwards. Despite stay-at-home orders, graffiti and street art have appeared on walls in cities all over the world.

Much of this was about the pandemic itself. During Melbourne’s first lockdown from March to early June, posters satirised the hoarding of toilet paper or showed Bart Simpson saying “ay corona”. Some artists simply wrote “COVID-19” as if it was a graffiti tag, evoking the tag names of decades gone by in New York and other American cities.

After the second wave of coronavirus infections hit Victoria in July, Melbourne’s lockdown intensified. Street art reflected the divided views expressed in media and political debates about public health. An artist added the words “MOCKING SCIENCE” to a “STOP” sign, perhaps as a riposte to COVID-deniers or anti-mask campaigners. Others wrote on bridges over freeways “the government lies” and “it’s just a flu”.

As this second lockdown went on, artists’ activities became more elaborate and more emotional. In South Melbourne, one mural revised Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam, which shows God giving life to Adam and is famed for its almost-touching fingers. This rendition placed the two figures far apart and put the words “physical distancing” between them.
Separation from friends and family members generated extensive anxiety and sadness in lockdown. Posters in Fitzroy exhorted us to “Be kind. Let’s look out for one another” and reminded us that “kindness is contagious too”. In Brunswick, one artist created posters evoking the semi-abstract figures of Matisse, with two people embracing, surrounded by the words “together soon enough”. Frequently, individuals simply condensed their emotions into two words, writing “f**k corona”.

As Melbourne’s harsh second lockdown ended, well-known artist Lushsux painted a mural of Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, posting a photograph on Instagram accompanied by a voice-over criticising Andrews for “the longest and most severe lockdown probably in the entire world”.

30/11/2021

30/11/2021