Street art and political revolution - Essay Example

THE ROLE OF STREET ART IN POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS by + For centuries, people have used art to express themselves in several ways. It has been used for historical purposes depicting the culture and the way of life. Greece art brought together paintings and carvings that showed their religious beliefs and their physical representations. Modern day art has diversified and the products can be seen from tattoos on people’s skin to paintings on walls and cars. The spread of art in modern times has gained significance with activists and modern day politics where it was not highly regarded before. Street art is a practice of making art in restricted public places, which is different from the conventional practice of displaying art in galleries. It gained ground during the rise of graffiti art in the 1980s, which was done on the walls of public places and was not well accepted. Analyzing “Who Is The Man, and Why He Is Screaming?" shows how street art depicts dissatisfaction with the administration. Its role and importance is more evident during the Arab uprising. Any political administration never misses oppressed people that have no means to air their grievances. For this reason, people look for alternatives for representation of their problems to those governing the people. Political activists and civil rights groups are the apex of advocating for people’s right, but they too can be suppressed into silence. In these circumstances, people use street art to express their grievances to those who view the art normally. The upside of art is the captivating emotions that an artist brings forth, which enrages the viewer to feel the artist’s grievances and become empathetic to the concerns raised by the art. According to Kadish in her description for the scream art, the picture evokes rage, frustration, hopelessness, and is a stimulus to revolt (Kadish 261). Street art, on the other hand, is accessible and could spread to many people due to technology where a picture is shared through social media and other mediums. In Egypt, there were graffiti and street art during the revolution, which were used by the Egyptian artists to mock the incumbent dictator Hussein Mubarak’s regime (Khatib 2013, p. 22). Freedom of expression speech is assumed as the only channel of expression, but art also plays a big role in it. Political revolutions tend to have beliefs and stand for a particular cause that the people concerned are willing to die for. Revolutionist should have a symbol or an art figure that represents this cause, which tends to motivate and keep them focused on the eventual cause of their struggle. Noam’s face which is used as a symbol by Iran activists represents anger and suffering which people find familiar (Kadish 261). The result of the picture is Iranians in the dark of night shout slogans imitating Noam’s scream in darkness. The visual representation that these people look for is mainly found in the street from artists who feel aggravated by the prevalent conditions that affect them, which they transform into art. In many revolutions where people fight against their oppression, the Che Guevara portrait is common in many flags of the revolutionary organizations (Rodrigues 2013). This is a symbolic representation of Che Guevara’s struggles against oppression, which he succeeded in the end. Street art is not only used in showing the struggle, but also there are those that show a new day will come where action will be taken and the oppression will end (261). In a revolution, the people reclaim control of infrastructure, national resources, social amenities from the governing body. In Tunisia, street art was elemental in reclamation of public spaces where the oppressed were given an opportunity for them to express themselves in different ways against the oppression. The public places, which were previously under the government, were used as the main venues for street art where murals, graffiti, symbols and Latin revolutionists were used by artist for representations. The murals were for the people killed during the revolution such as Mohamed Bouazizi who lit himself up and his act became a stimulus for the revolutions in Tunisia. According to Jarman, he claims that drawings made on walls have an effect of redefining a public venue (Jarman1998, p. 147). This means that the murals that are made on a wall of a public place have the capability of reclaiming people’s lives. According to Kadish the portrait of her cousin Noam, painted on walls has an impact on the action of the frustrated people (Kadish 261). Street art achieves this by encouraging public participation from those in the streets, empowering individuals and legitimizing their presence in the aspect of state organizations. Frustrations by governing institutions are the major cause of the revolutions. In Tunisia the people were tired of the high living standards they were experiencing, but the government was not doing anything. The people’s frustration could not be expressed widely due to the suppression and censoring of information by the government. As a result, the people’s expression could not be collectively organized and air their discrepancies which reached a point the people decided it was enough. Suppressing and censoring of artists is a demeaning action to take and the artists do not feel as if their work is complete. When the government goes on to suppress and censor art, the only option left is for artists to produce their work on the street where there are no restrictions and the audience for the street art is bigger and gets to those who are affected. To comprehend the importance of street art and the effect it has on the revolution one has to look at how the population receives the art. There are factors surrounding the reception of art by the people and it contributes to the revolutionary momentum of the people. According to Khatib, the interrelation between art and actions of activists such as the public space reclamation, public solidarity and citizen agency need to be further looked into and how the general population views the street art (Khatib 2013, p 89). Focusing on this it is important to ask the question how do people who are not involved in activist groups view the street art produced. Answering this question makes it possible to know how the public perceives the street art and if they will accept the message, the street art is trying to put across. Street art has played a big role in the Arab spring uprising, the people of these countries did not start with a snap of a finger, but it was a gradual process that with art representation of their frustrations. It is not scientifically proven that street art was the main reason for the uprising and the perseverance of the hard times to freedom, but in some circumstances, it could have contributed to the revolt. Street art in public places in Tunisia where people who died for the cause of freedom is believed to have stimulated the public into persevering and a belief that even in death the people would find freedom. In describing the impact of street art, it is important to analyze and conduct a thorough research on what was the reception and how was the effect of the street art on the people. It can be deduced that it informs and information is important in revolution where the activists are limited in movement in communication and transport. References List Jarman, N 1998, Painting Landscapes: the place of murals in the symbolic construction of urban space In Symbols of Northern Ireland, The Queens University of Belfast 8 Fitzwilliam Street, Belfast. Kadish, Rachel, “Who Is The Man, and Why He Is Screaming?" Khatib, L 2013, Image politics in the Middle East, I.B. Tauris, London Rodrigues, J 2013, Revolutionary Art on the Streets of Tunisia, [online] Roger Williams University, Available at: http://pdq.rwu.edu/news/revolutionary-art-streets-tunisia [Accessed 4 Mar. 2015]. Read More