Before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans an art based political movement fueled by graffiti created an intense atmosphere around the historical Barrone St. Artist activists from the resistance subculture began forcing their voices with images to spark public awareness and resist social control. Emanuel A. David, a visual ethnographer, was there to capture the politically charged messages and interprets the sociological effects of these acts of visual resistance. During that time in response to the graffitiing were community members that took on a rigid approach of no tolerance promising to destroy any defacing of property within 24 hours if reported to a tip hotline. The “Gray Ghost” was the man behind the ANTI Graffiti campaign also known as Fred Radtke personally used gray paint to cover all images considered to be graffiti. Radtke went to such great lengths as involving the police which only spurred on the political unrest (David 2007).
Symbolic interactionism has enormous relevance regarding the cultural debate of images on the streets of New Orleans during this time. Graffiti itself carries a stigma guilty of lowering the value of buildings, depreciating neighborhoods, and even promoting crime in communities. Most people have a negative opinion about what it represents and those who create the street art. Earlier connections to gangs and juvenile delinquents is now a refined artistic ability added to the right location graffiti is a popular trend decorating landmark. Mural artists contracted by government officials have permission officially decriminalizing graffiti. Discriminating officials control city murals have the final say in the message of the art and who or what will be represented in them. Graffiti is still criminalized because it has been labeled as a symbol of delinquency. Conflict theory is at the heart of this chapter as well, exemplified by a power struggle between the activists who are resisting social control and the dominating class attempting to silence them. The local issue that threatens to obliterate this historical urban community with capitalist developments is occurring all over the country yet rarely is a topic of public debate. David was able to document this rivalry by capturing photographs of the graffiti before they were painted over by the Gray Ghost and narrates the drama unfolding in this visual ethnography.
Redevelopment of neighborhoods at the arrival of Walmart promised a corporate takeover inciting drastic change and economic consequences to coinciding with antiwar movements. Politically charged is how David describes the climate of Barrone street during this time. When his research started it was a small documentary project of political images in the same area which turned into a visual case study of Baronne St. with an additional study exploring the cover ups by the Gray Ghost (David 2007). His visual ethnography made possible by his use of a bicycle to get around New Orleans and using whatever means necessary to document the images with any camera to report how the resistance subculture of activists directly communicated their views and inspired a social movement by promoting social change. David (2007) uses the process of open coding which is data collection and analysis occurring simultaneously as his research method. Local issues, regional issues and global issues are the three definitive categories David created to sort the images and help him identify patterns to organize the data he collected. The terminology used in David’s research project created a problem due to the labeling and criminal stigma around graffiti. Street art was the first term David (2007) adapted, however, realizing this favored approval of criminal acts not used for social change he decided on operational term, “visual resistance”. The definition as David (2007) see it is anything challenging power with any transformation of a surface. Discovering a common situation found in most inner cities of America David was able to document this activism and interprets the powerful impact it had on the local culture community of New Orleans. I have seen visual resistance in San Antonio and imagine it was covered up and painted over due to no one documenting it or giving the art exposure it was a lost cause. Positions of power promoting social control are silencing the masses by criminalizing or policing activist attempts to speak out against political and economic inequality. David echoes my sentiment saying visual resistance can reclaim and produce new cultural spaces noting, “in the production of new cultural spaces perception, meaning, and identity are constructed within relationships of power, inequality and marginalization” (David p.235, 2007) he adds “the artist disruption of structures challenges their formally prescribed meaning”. By creating these new spaces activists were allowing alternative communication to express silenced voices sidestepping the barriers of authority and bypassing social control. Structural Functionalism is not the first theory that comes to mind reading this chapter however, as the author describes the French Quarter at the time he was there I now understand the visual resistance to be functioning as a platform for open expression against political powers that normally would not be given a public platform. Political propaganda publicly viewed by the community has five defining characteristics that demonstrate how visual resistance functions: collectivity, democratic competition, expressiveness, and adaptability (David 2007). The collective is formed by a shared political interest within a community and the the city streets. Providing a blank canvas for expression of opinions and beliefs of social problems, the politicization and democratic competition of street art comes from the democrat essence of ideas advocating the marginalized population. Expressive yet simple, images are short and symbolic showing the power of symbols and demonstrating symbolic interactionism at its best. The messages are topically changing as headlines of a newspaper in frequency of the adaptability function of visual resistance. Striking at the heart of local and global issues with posters, writing, culture jamming, graffiti these features are what artist activists utilized as the tools for social change. The visual resistance documented by David questions development of Barrone Street and confronts the issue of capitalist conversion of the neighborhood. For example, one image depicting the words “homeless shelter” remarking on the potential consequences that otherwise would never be considered or acknowledged. The activists illustrate their community transformed by gentrification as a warning for what the future holds, class conflicts and mass consumption is the main theme of the street art, conveying how people have become products of the media and superficiality. A local problem and a national trend hidden in a conspiracy of silence becomes temporarily visible by the artist anarchists, representing the urban struggles of class conflict and displacement for capitalistic gains. Traditional media outlets controlled by the capitalist agenda do not allow the other side of the debate hear or tell a story. Visual resistance breaks pattern and can reach victims of the economic inequality that happens when capitalists reclaim older urban territories. David (2007) touches on how to challenge this claiming, participation is needed and the disruption of information and political message is contributing to the movement for social change.
Some consider street art to be violent by defacing property and its ability to mobilize and inspire violent action in its audience which Instigates more violence in counteractions (David 2007). The material content is also violent in nature with one image showing a worker self-medicating to indicate a suicide attempt related to the poor quality of life and working conditions forced on him by capitalist system he works for. National subject matter on the streets of New Orleans featured in visual resistance included colonialism and anti-war sentiments. Knowledge production is crucial and, in my opinion, awareness is the main achievement of this visual resistance movement. The ability to give the community ideas of their place in the social order and realistic dialogue about what is happening in terms of social control can inspire social change by showing how there is hope in inspiring a movement of people willing to resist the powers that be.
Gregory C. Stanczak (2007) Visual Research Methods: Image, Society, and Representation (VRMISR), Sage Publications
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