Perusing Public Marginalia
Lunsford’s notion of public marginalia invites us to reconsider the marks that exist in our urban settings, those which are often easily dismissed or reduced to stigmatizing labels like vandalism. Lunsford notes that public marginalia are essentially “voices from the margins appropriating the organized behaviors and discourse of the system world, improvising upon the surfaces of that world in order to form their own shadows.” In an effort to explore some public marginalia in Chicago, I set out on the warmest day in the forecast to find some examples based on where I figured I could find some.
My first stop to find public marginalia was, not surprisingly, the CTA trains and stations. While not present on quite the same scale as what was observed in transit systems like that of New York City, Chicago’s CTA contained a plethora of content worthy of observation.
Much of what I found during this excursion was the kind of graffiti that Lunsford claims is “intended to be acontextual and indecipherable to those outside graffer communities, who strive to maintain their work as anonymous, private, marginal, and unsanctioned.” It seemed to me that they were often hidden in plain sight, ironically invisible for being displayed so openly in public. Perhaps they were drowned out by the booming arrival and departure of trains, obscured by the sea of people frantically weaving through the crowded platform during rush hour. I feel like I only tend to notice the presence of these things while stationary, whether I’m stopping to throw something away at the trash can or standing under the heat lamp waiting for the train to arrive. I naturally peruse my environment, scanning for any and every interesting detail in my vicinity.
The best examples to me were the ones that could be found on CTA signs and instructions, like the image above. Not only can someone leave their mark creatively through paint or pen, but they can also mark destructively through physically carving their message out of the existing red paint on the sign. The crude lettering of the carvings almost seemed to mock the clean simplistic text of the instructional sign. Even the yellow gold pen marking attempts to undermine the authority of the sign by covering some of the words, an attempt to steal your attention. From there, I branched out away from the trains to search elsewhere in the Lakeview East neighborhood.
Some marginalia can be very demanding and can leave an impact on passers-by due to the perceived profoundness of its simplicity. One could imagine a complete stranger suddenly coming to a moment of acute consciousness and acknowledging it in this manner. In a busy, fast paced culture, we often don’t stop to acknowledge our surroundings or the bigger picture. Arising from this problem, these tactical interjections intertwine with you upon your experiencing them, allowing them to invite you to think about where you are in the present moment and how you perceive the world around you.
This had to be my most interesting and puzzling encounter, located on an obscure steel support facing into an alleyway under the Wellington brown line stop. Whoever wrote this did not want it to be as publicly visible; they wanted the kind of people who walk in the alleys under the tracks to see it. The phrase “In God Ur Trust” seems to, as Lunsford explains of marginalia, “make a critical appraisal of the original statement.” The creator could be making a statement against religious institutions or the government by playing off the “In God We Trust” motto. The flag further obscures the meaning (To me, it most closely resembles the flag of the Fiji islands, but I’m not 100% sure). However, ultimately the why of it is not as important as understanding that I was influenced by my interaction with it. Overall, my encounters with the public marginalia of my neighborhood in Chicago made me really think twice about the impact and intentions of these markings that I previously viewed as insignificant.
Here are some additional photos I took on my excursions that I didn’t immediately perceive as relevant but felt were worthy enough to include here:
