Mural on the side of a market in Hyde Square, Jamaica Plain. Image credit: Jess Smith, 2015.
Introduction
For this project, I consider the ways that bottom-up and top-down urbanism connect and interact by looking (mainly) at street art and graffiti in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. I am interested in the ways that sanctioned and unsanctioned forms of urbanism - in this case, public art and graffiti - exist and intersect with one another.
In this curated space, you’ll see three sections: “sanctioned”, “unsanctioned”, and “mix”. In each, I’ve posted images of art or graffiti I observed throughout the area around the Stonybrook T (subway) stop in Jamaica Plain. My observations took place in March and April of 2015. The sanctioned works are those that are either part of an established public art project by the City of Boston, or were created/commissioned and installed by home or business owners on private property. The unsanctioned works are forms of graffiti, or street art. In the final section, I show examples where sanctioned and unsanctioned actions or artwork co-exist.
sanctioned
Unsanctioned
"I believe the freedom to accept and to live in disorder represents the goal which this generation has aimed for, vaguely and inchoately, in its search for 'community.'" (Sennett 1992, xviii)
"An image appears overnight and might last a day or a year - its lifespan is never possible to predict, never possible to know." (Young 2014, 10)
"An image appears overnight and might last a day or a year - its lifespan is never possible to predict, never possible to know." (Young 2014, 10)
MIX
"Social space, therefore, is made up of a complex of individual feelings and images about and reactions towards the spatial symbolism that surrounds that individual." (Harvey 2009, 34)
- David Harvey
- David Harvey
In these two videos (click above), a lively mix of sanctioned and unsanctioned urban actions are evident. First, I'll discuss the hearts. By the corner of Amory and Boylston Streets, just east of the Stonybrook T stop, is a colorfully painted utility box with a heart at the center. If you continue walking away from the T, toward the intersection, you'll see a small red sticker - two halves of a broken heart on a pole. These two urban actions - one sanctioned and fixed, and one unsanctioned and ephemeral - play off one another, and the impact of both is deepened through their interaction.
In the other video, we move beyond the visual. I filmed this during a quiet Sunday morning, to offer viewers a sense of the mix of top-down urban elements (the roads, train tracks, and bike paths) and the more bottom-up elements (graffiti along the subway walls, vines growing along the fences, people running and walking). When I reviewed the film later, I was struck by the sounds, and how these add to the "mixed" urban experience of sanctioned and unsanctioned elements. Listen for the orderly sounds: the bell from the T station, signaling the doors opening, the rumble of the train going by, and a car driving along the road. Then, listen for the more disorderly sounds: the birds singing, the glass breaking as a car drives over a bottle, the wind blowing across the microphone of my camera. Like the hearts example, the urban experience is made more complex - and I argue, more rich - with this mix of orderly and disorderly elements.
In the other video, we move beyond the visual. I filmed this during a quiet Sunday morning, to offer viewers a sense of the mix of top-down urban elements (the roads, train tracks, and bike paths) and the more bottom-up elements (graffiti along the subway walls, vines growing along the fences, people running and walking). When I reviewed the film later, I was struck by the sounds, and how these add to the "mixed" urban experience of sanctioned and unsanctioned elements. Listen for the orderly sounds: the bell from the T station, signaling the doors opening, the rumble of the train going by, and a car driving along the road. Then, listen for the more disorderly sounds: the birds singing, the glass breaking as a car drives over a bottle, the wind blowing across the microphone of my camera. Like the hearts example, the urban experience is made more complex - and I argue, more rich - with this mix of orderly and disorderly elements.
bibliography
Harvey, David. 2009. Social Justice and the City. Revised edition. Athens: University of Georgia Press.
Sennett, Richard. 1992. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Young, Alison. 2014. Street Art, Public City: Law, Crime and the Urban Imagination. 1 edition. Routledge.
Click here for a list of the semester's readings, which influenced my thinking for this project.
Sennett, Richard. 1992. The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Young, Alison. 2014. Street Art, Public City: Law, Crime and the Urban Imagination. 1 edition. Routledge.
Click here for a list of the semester's readings, which influenced my thinking for this project.