Statement of Intent:
As a part of a life campaign I call “Wake Apnea,” I would like to use graffiti art, the antagonist of surveillance in the art world, to create awareness of surveillance. It is a simple concept as my interests in graffiti draw a lot from phenomenology and the immediate physical experience of the passer by.
Originally I had intended to use the walls of the city along a walking tour to create a critical walking tour with small text where the walker is aware of their surveyed moments via graffiti, but this changed as I became more interested in using the actual art gallery space to accommodate a form of public art which would otherwise be removed and silenced by the city immediately. After looking through the city’s bylaws and guidelines, I was heavily inspired by the fact that the city had no qualms in stating,
“Graffiti generates fears of neighbourhood crime, instability, and declining property values…Graffiti is not simply a maintenance problem, but a complex social problem as well. If graffiti is not cleaned up, the perception is that the behaviour is condoned and the area is not being watched. This opens the door for other property crimes and creates an environment that tolerates violent crimes such as serious assaults and robbery. “
The concept of graffiti as anything more than vandalism is rejected by almost all governmental and beaurocratic institutions, so the art gallery accommodating graffiti towards the outside of the street argues with this notion that the “deviance” of graffiti is not art. The sanctity of the piece as permitted by the gallery space, as well s validation by the art gallery as to imply these concepts can be “art” creates a tension with the city already. But this safety can generate much speed if the walls are used to contradict the city’s concepts of graffiti and surveillance. The city proudly states (as bolded above) that inhabitants should be aware of themselves being watched as to not deviate in behavior. I want to do the same thing, but just more simply.
Classic graffiti is stylized text, and tagging is simple scribbles, yet I want to work in a textual space in between. I would like to stencil (with removable window paints as used by stores/businesses) a statement on each window, addressing to the public their context within surveillance. In the top corners of each window space I would like to stencil in security cameras to remind the viewer of in which way they are being watched. This is all essentially very simple but that is the point, that abstraction of obscurity cannot muddle the intentions and resulting behaviour nor can the piece be brushed off as art for arts sake.
Artist Bio:
I am an Iranian-American woman and Los Angeles native greatly influenced by both local and international graffiti movements. Born into an exiled household, notions of exclusion and isolation were always close to my heart and could not find their way out until they manifested themselves in concepts of public art. Growing up with a paintbrush or etching tool in hand, I still never felt comfortable as an “insider” or in a fine art program, so I studied the theory at UCSD and SFU yet in private praxis continued to explore a variety of media. As my adolescence fell in place with the renaissance of fear and conservatism of 9/11, the shift into the political as an Iranian-American woman felt almost necessary to thrive. Graffiti not only rejects elitism within the arts, but also allows a shy human to facelessly communicate with the cohabiters of her urban space, to not lose connection to the home where one can feel so easily marginalized.My art is for everyone and anyonre, even more so the every day passerby than a viewer within any institutional structure. Highly influenced by phenomogoloy and feminism, I am interested in exploring the physical experience of being hit in the face by art when you least expect it. My art does not conceptualize at a depth which demands hours of viewing yet hopes to resonate in the subconscious as a moment of apnea through the drudgery of everyday life. From consumer awareness to feminist images, I aspire to live in the space between social deviance and artistic ritual to anonymously be able to connect with those around me. The anonymity of the creator of the graffiti image gives the image its own agency, its own entity that belongs only to itself and the city it inhabits, to only itself and entire public, completely unprivatized. From city officials to the surveillance cameras used to mute the graffiti movement, those individuals responsible for the murder or “removal” of graffiti represent the social infrastructures that dominate and manipulate ideology to mute resistance. Increasing urban surveillance has become the largest challenge to the survival of international graffiti movements, completely antagonizing and oppressing public art with fear. I now aspire to invert power by speaking to the every public openly about the forces which they might not always feel as gently oppressing them, speaking a cultural dialogue which is constantly muted.