Street Art in San Francisco’s Mission District
In many places, the act of painting or altering public spaces by way of street art is frowned upon. I grew up hearing about how all graffiti was gang-related, and how trashy and low-brow it was to participate in such ventures. I wasn’t blind though. I could see from a young age the talent possessed by those creating this art, deftly as with multiple brushes, often using only spray paint. Though I was taught to view this act as vandalism, and disrespectful, I could never see how the expression of one’s experience and culture could be such a negative thing. There was too much beauty in it. Still, until I moved to the mission district of San Francisco, I never experienced street art as being celebrated as a positive element of the rhetoric of a city. The Mission is full of both culturally and historically interesting murals, created by individuals from varied backgrounds and experiences, that encourage a creative culture.
The mission district has a history of encouraging street art. In the 1930’s the Works Progress Administration (WPA), funded community beautification projects. Diego Rivera was one of the more famous artists to come to San Francisco who was funded by the WPA and his presence encouraged muralist culture. The Central and South American influence in the mission district is due mainly to a large influx of immigrants in the 1930–60’s, in particular those escaping civil war in Nicaragua. This influence you can see today in the murals and street art. Bright colors and cultural rhetoric dominate the art in the mission district, and help form the “personality” of a certain place.
As Edbauer puts it, we “do city” we don’t just live in them (11). Each location has its own rhetoric that forms our perception of that place. By taking hints from our surroundings we can garner enough information to decide how to act and react in the situations that may arise. The cultural aspect of the art in the mission district is one of those hints Our perception of street art itself also manifests our ideas of an area, as does our understanding of the rhetoric within the art. I may feel more at ease in the Mission District since I view street art as an improvement upon city aesthetics and because I know that the art in the mission has historical and cultural importance, whereas someone else may feel that this expression of art is somehow an indication of an irresponsible and unpredictable environment.
In fact many may be threatened by the existence of street art since it is often already completed when it is viewed and we have no concept of the person who erected the art to begin with. As put by Roberts-Miller “Research suggests that this is how many individuals reach conclusions about policies: on the basis of the kind of person who seems to endorse it” (178). Thus the lack of direct contact with the artist can either reinforce the idea of street art as an “outgroup” or an “ingroup” depending on previous perceptions of the types of people who may create street art. There seems to be a much larger group of individuals in the mission district that appreciate street art as an expression of culture than not, and this has created some extraordinary works, and led to the beautification of previously unused space.
Beyond being aesthetically pleasing, art in public places can create a rhetoric of culture within a community, Often in the Mission District, the art is uplifting,representative of various cultures within the community, and themed around everyday experiences of city dwellers. It helps to create solidarity within a community too large for it’s members to all know each other, The art present in the city is seen by all those who frequent the same geographical places, and is soon a part of a shared rhetorical situation as well. This can create a feeling of belonging to a certain ingroup of the city, and can even affect change by communicating ideas to this group that may inspire action. An example is the famous artist Banksy, who has used his street art in the Mission District and all over the world to make political statements. His works speak of a world full of capitalist greed, and call for a new world in which art and the simple enjoyment of life take precedence. This obviously goes much farther than traditional views of graffiti as lurid, pointless, or even somehow violent.
Street art helps to form what Cameron McAuliffe refers to as “moral geographies”. He suggests that “The concept of place itself hints at the presence of moral geographies, as contextualized valuations of space result in normative understandings of how to be in place The way we value a place varies across time and space, but settles around normative understandings in particular contexts” (191). The art I experienced in the mission district influenced the perception that I formed of the place. It also guided how I pursued consuming more rhetoric in regards to the neighborhood since I could see, literally, some of the history of the area and its people. Thus such rhetoric extends beyond its immediate geography to form a more abstract ingroup.
The queues we receive from our surrounding can be formed by street signs, types of shops, quality of architecture etc, but nothing is so direct in expressing the culture of a place than street art. When one views a piece of art that has been erected and accepted by a community, it’s safe to say it reflects some type of value that community holds, or it wouldn’t be allowed to remain. Thus, when walking in San Francisco, each neighborhood is dressed in the colors of its culture. This rhetoric guides us to understanding our surroundings, and exemplifies the talent and creativity present in each neighborhood as well as the cultural history that formed them.
