Bruce, Caitlin Frances. Painting Publics: Transnational Legal Graffiti Scenes as Spaces for Encounter

Gressel, Katherine

doi:10.1080/21502552.2020.1713593

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Considering public art as a public matter of concern necessarily unravels conflicting opinions, feelings and degrees of appreciation by diverse audiences. In the spirit of encouraging to live with difference (Valentine 2008) and agonism (Bruce 2018), ghostly public art moves beyond perpetuations of exclusionary politics instead of falling for forcefully constructed consensus.…”

Section: Conclusion: the Ghostly Power Of Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Landau

2023

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

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The article unpacks the multiple political implications of commissioned murals in contested urban space. It examines public artwork in Hogan’s Alley, a historically Black neighborhood in Vancouver, BC, situated on the unceded Indigenous territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Coast Salish Nations. Drawing from ethnographic field research and semi-structured interviews with local artists, policymakers and community activists, I read the mural Remember Hogan’s Alleny (2019), covering the sidewall of a subsidized housing project, as a contested public space. In this conflictual space, multiple pasts appear, disappear and reappear, oscillating between the celebration of Black culture, food and entertainment and the systematic displacement of Black residents and businesses. By contrasting diverging rationales, expectations and dreams regarding murals’ contributions to memory-making and cultural reconciliation, I trace where and how conflicts about public art inscribe themselves into the urban cultural fabric. The article intervenes into the predominantly ‘positive’ discussion of sanctioned public art to develop a more conflict-attuned understanding of artworks placed in the public realm. It deploys a framework of hauntology to discuss the appearance of ghosts invited into the public realm via official art commissions. These ghosts, becoming visible on urban walls via acts of placemaking, conjure memories of spatial displacement and racial discrimination, as well as stories of community care and healing. In sum, the article argues that the analytic of ghosts assists to foster an understanding of public art as always-already conflictual, thus inviting to stay with conflicts of belonging and memory, rather than to suppress them or shy away. By reflecting on what public art does politically – unpacking diverse narratives of the past that continue to mark present racial inequalities – the article contributes to sketching a conflict-oriented understanding of public space that is needed in cities wounded by racism and displacement.

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Section: Conclusion: the Ghostly Power Of Conflictmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Landau

2023

Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Bruce, Caitlin Frances. Painting Publics: Transnational Legal Graffiti Scenes as Spaces for Encounter

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

Ghostly murals: Tracing the politics of public art in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley

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