Often associated with disenfranchised youth, graffiti art has been making waves in today’s public sphere. Many consider graffiti to be a jumble of colorful vandalisms designed to attract the passive bystander. To others, it is a sign of resistance, loaded with political messages. Graffiti art emerged in the late 1960s as a battle against the New York neo-liberalization forefront. Contrary to the upper-middle class, predominantly white New York, graffiti practitioners considered the activity as “multiracial, multicultural, multilingual, [and] multidimensional,” (Miller, 2002: 32). Today, graffiti continues to evolve and is found on all corners of the globe, principally in urbanized settings that are associated with the hip-hop culture.
A single stencil of Noam Chomsky’s portrait in black spray paint is found carefully tucked in a discreet, yet visible area of the UBC Rose Garden. By choosing this setting, the artist is sending a message of defiance by “vandalizing” this pristine (at least during the summer) tourist attraction within the campus grounds. The artist’s choice of Chomsky’s image asserts their opinion regarding the “social disorganization and urban decay [of today’s world],” (Kane, 2009:10). Chomsky is known for his work in media criticism, particularly with his book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. His book utilizes the propaganda model by analyzing the way in which media is organized. Chomsky depicts the majority of today’s media as controlled by privatized institutions, relentlessly influencing and shaping social agendas. One can speculate that the graffiti’s significance is to raise awareness within the UBC community- to expand on our personal beliefs and philosophies. After all, UBC is supposedly a place of mind.
By: Jenina Singian
Miller, Ivor L. (2002) Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Kane, Stephanie C. (2009) Stencil Graffiti in Urban Waterscapes of Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina: Crime and Media Culture 5(9): 10.
Boswell, Katie. “Rose Garden in Winter.” Photo. Flickr.com 10 Jan. 2012. 08 Feb 2012