This book explores how street art has been used as a tool of resistance to express opposition to political systems and social issues around the world. Aesthetic devices such as murals, tags, posters, street performances and caricatures are discussed in terms of how they are employed to occupy urban spaces and present alternative visions of social reality. Based on empirical research, the authors use the framework of creative psychology to explore the aesthetic dimensions of resistance that can be found in graffiti, art, music, poetry and other creative cultural forms. Chapters include case studies from countries including Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico and Spain to shed new light on the social, cultural and political dynamics of street art not only locally, but globally. This innovative collection will be of particular interest to scholars of social and political psychology, urban studies and the wider sociologies and is essential reading for all those interested in the role of art in social change.

This stunning book of photographs captures the graffiti and art that have transformed Israel's wall into a living canvas of resistance and solidarity. Featuring the work of artists Banksy, Ron English, Blu, and others, as well as Palestinian artists and activists, these photographs express outrage, compassion, and touching humor. They illustrate the wall's toll on lives and livelihoods, showing the hardship it has brought to tens of thousands of people, preventing their access to work, education, and vital medical care. Mixed with the images are portraits and vignettes, offering a heartfelt and inspiring account of a people determined to uphold their dignity in the face of profound injustice.

Recent global events, including the ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings, Occupy movements and anti-austerity protests across Europe have renewed scholarly and public interest in collective action, protest strategies and activist subcultures. We know that social movements do not just contest and politicise culture, they create it too. However, scholars working within international politics and social movement studies have been relatively inattentive to the manifold political mediations of graffiti, muralism, street performance and other street art forms. Against this backdrop, this book explores the evolving political role of street art in Latin America during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It examines the use, appropriation and reconfiguration of public spaces and political opportunities through street art forms, drawing on empirical work undertaken in Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina. Bringing together a range of insights from social movement studies, aesthetics and anthropology, the book highlights some of the difficulties in theorising and understanding the complex interplay between art and political practice. It seeks to explore 'what art can do' in protest, and in so doing, aims to provide a useful point of reference for students and scholars interested in political communication, culture and resistance. It will be of interest to students and scholars working in politics, international relations, political and cultural geography, Latin American studies, art, sociology and anthropology.

This book is about resistance in everyday life, illustrated through empirical contexts from different parts of the world. Resistance is a widespread phenomenon in biological, social and psychological domains of human cultural development. Yet, it is not well articulated in the academic literature and, when it is, resistance is most often considered counter-productive. Simple evaluations of resistance as positive or negative are avoided in this volume; instead it is conceptualised as a vital process for human development and well-being. While resistance is usually treated as an extraordinary occurrence, the focus here is on everyday resistance as an intentional process where new meaning constructions emerge in thinking, feeling, acting or simply living with others. Resistance is thus conceived as a meaning-making activity that operates at the intersection of personal and collective systems. The contributors deal with strategies for handling dissent by individuals or groups, specifically dissent through resistance. Resistance can be a location of intense personal, interpersonal and cultural negotiation, and that is the primary reason for interest in this phenomenon. Ordinary life events contain innumerable instances of agency and resistance. This volume discusses their manifestations, and it is therefore of interest for academics and researchers of cultural psychology, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, and human development.

Whether aesthetically or politically inspired, graffiti is among the oldest forms of expression in human history, one that becomes especially significant during periods of social and political upheaval. With a particular focus on the demographic, ecological, and economic crises of today, this volume provides a wide-ranging exploration of urban space and visual protest. Assembling case studies that cover topics such as gentrification in Cyprus, the convulsions of post-independence East Timor, and opposition to Donald Trump in the American capital, it reveals the diverse ways in which street artists challenge existing social orders and reimagine urban landscapes.

The best way to learn history is to visualize it! Since 1998, Josh MacPhee has commissioned and produced over one hundred posters by over eighty artists that pay tribute to revolution, racial justice, women's rights, queer liberation, labor struggles, and creative activism and organizing. Celebrate People's History! presents these essential moments—acts of resistance and great events in an often hidden history of human and civil rights struggles—as a visual tour through decades and across continents, from the perspective of some of the most interesting and socially engaged artists working today. Celebrate People's History includes artwork by Cristy Road, Swoon, Nicole Schulman, Christopher Cardinale, Sabrina Jones, Eric Drooker, Klutch, Carrie Moyer, Laura Whitehorn, Dan Berger, Ricardo Levins Morales, Chris Stain, and more.

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.