"It’s a City Full of Walls You Can Post Complaints At”

Street Artivist Agitprop as Holistic Pedagogy and the Informal Praxis of One Conscious Cultural Worker

Abstract

Invoking emcee Yasin Bey’s (Mos Def) quote from his verse on “Speed Law,” “it’s a city full of walls you can post complaints at,”  this study harvests Black World ways of knowledge production, activism, and expression voiced through an examination of the intersemiotics of various products of Black vernacular culture articulated through image. Through a single-case study and by analyzing unsanctioned and sanctioned graffiti and murals that has often been considered ephemeral vandal’s work, this study explores one Black American public artivist’s social justice oriented graffiti and murals within the contexts of spatial justice, homeplace, racial inequity, gentrification, and ephemerality versus preservation. I interrogate how these visual forms of expression serve as mediums for marginalized voices in urban landscapes, simultaneously contested and embraced, and how taggers, style writers, and muralists are indeed public intellectuals and their artivism a kind of community based  engaged pedagogy and work Critical Black Didactic Art.

Through analysis of an artist in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, this paper delves into the ways diasporic Black street art seeks to reflect and shape the sociopolitical fabric of cities, highlighting its role in both expressing and challenging experiences of racial inequity and urbanity. Through interviews and analyzing street art, the essay argues for Black social justice oriented street art’s potential to offer new avenues for understanding and advocating for spatial justice, thereby transforming urban walls into spaces of collective memory and resistance. Through this exploration, the paper contributes to broader discussions on the significance of public art in shaping urban identity, its usability to support community members’ multiliteracy through vernacular culture artifacts, and the ongoing struggle for justice and equity in cityscapes around the globe.

Peer Reviewed Submission