Street art as everyday counterterrorism? The Norwegian art community’s reaction to the 22 July 2011 attacks

Abstract

This article looks at a project involving nine internationally acclaimed street artists who agreed to make murals in Oslo, following the 22 July 2011 attacks. Resting on the art project’s aims (‘to promote universal human rights and to counter the intolerance and xenophobia that can give rise to violence and justify terrorism’) and the art community’s reaction, the article argues that street art’s visibility and agency offer alternative ways of thinking about, and approaching, international relations (IR). The article examines the streets as the space where artists express and engage the ‘everyday’; and as the medium that allows artists to bring art to the public (as opposed to galleries or exhibitions the public chooses to visit). We argue that the incorporation of street art’s spatiality and aesthetics into ‘everyday IR’ supports more critical frameworks that (a) expose the exceptional logic(s) of illiberal governance; (b) enable the visibility of marginalised and/or dissenting voices in society; and (c) explore experimental, eclectic and creative approaches of doing/thinking everyday security, community and peace.

Understanding Everyday Peace in Cambodia: Plurality, Subtlety, and Connectivity

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“…After the 2011 massacre in Norway, street artists initiated the development of spaces to advance tolerance and healing (Tellidis & Glomm, 2019). So too, the peace walls of Belfast sharply contrast with partisan hate-filled muralsthe former convey shared values while the latter espouse difference.…”

Preserving the everyday: Pre-political agency in peacebuilding theory

“…Similarly, in another article purporting to examine 'the everyday', Tellidis and Glomm's (2019) focus on street art that nonetheless had an avowedly political purpose (in this case the art festival most closely examined was intending to promote universal human rights but then morphed into something else in response to terrorist attacks). But such art can hardly be seen as anything other than consciously political activity.…”

“…But such art can hardly be seen as anything other than consciously political activity. Indeed, the authors themselves note that street art is related to other forms of what they call ‘everyday resistance’, such as the Occupy movement and the Arab Spring (Tellidis and Glomm, 2019: 4). Hence in this presentation, much like that of Berents and McEvoy-Levy, they privilege the political.…”

“…Hence in this presentation, much like that of Berents and McEvoy-Levy, they privilege the political. Tellidis and Glomm do cite De Certeau to note that ‘the everyday’ ‘is a site of knowledge, even if said knowledge is unconscious’, but they decline to fully engage with the potentials of such unconscious knowledge for pre-political agency or peacebuilding, instead arguing that the importance of ‘the everyday’ is largely located in the political agency ascribed via ‘the very consciousness of its acts/actions insofar as these aim at the alteration of power relations’ (Tellidis and Glomm, 2019: 3). Much like Richmond’s earlier work, therefore, each of these scholars uses ‘the everyday’ primarily as a scalar referent for politics at the micro or local level.…”