Graffiti City
On our first day in the city, we were sent off with a simple mission. Walk and take three pictures. Each picture had to capture a specific theme. Up. Down. And mystery. The journey began. As we began, we looked around for what to photograph, trying to get the assignment out of the way. Up and Down were easy. Mystery kept me captivated. I tried to look around for things I don’t usually notice, hoping for some secret trap door that led to a hidden lair. What I saw instead was stickers.
They were slapped onto street signs, light poles, and newspapers. They were words or graphics, some of them advertising, some were inspirational, some were crude comics. Although no one else in my group seemed too captivated by these little pops of color, I couldn’t stop noticing them. They were mysteries to me. Who put them there? How long have they been there? What were they for? What was the inspiration? There was no easy way to find the answers and so the little artworks remained a mystery. When the Mystery Picture remained an assignment for the upcoming week, I continued to look around. Alongside the little stickers, I saw words written in spray paint or marker. Sometimes the words were eligible, other times they weren’t. They usually appeared to be names, and each was unique in their style of calligraphy. Later that day we were asked to write down what we saw on our walk. I wrote graffiti.
Graffiti became my daily focus. I was always stopping to snap a picture of it, even if it was out of the way, and it appeared as poorly drawn replications in my journal. On Thursday, we traveled to Pilsen. There, we were led around the town by Luis, who explained the local murals and other wall art. The murals were painted by professionals and amateurs alike, using mediums such as paint, tile, and spray paint. Luis explained the stories behind the murals. They were made to portray anger or sadness or praise. Some of the work was graffiti art, which was a little different than the other murals in that the word or words in the artwork actually was the artwork. The word itself was full of expression, lyrical in content, and aesthetic in style and color. The graffiti, like the other artwork, was used for self-expression, giving the artist a voice for his ideas, problems, and feelings.
The graffiti became the most important part of the trip as it connected me to the people of the city. The vibrancy and design not only made the sidewalk prettier, it also made any passerby stop and look. The artist had laid out themselves in their work. This self-expression gives the city a voice. The opinions, problems, religion, and culture is all laid out on street.
