Negative curation and contested claims over the public visual landscape

Abstract

This paper explores the graffiti and street art produced during the 2017 postal plebiscite for same sex marriage in Australia, including activists’ creative visual responses to the hate speech that proliferated in urban and suburban areas during this highly charged period. The paper has a particular focus on the wholesale erasure of street art and graffiti bearing political messages in support of, or against, marriage equality. Communities increasingly exert stewardship over the public visual landscape, and may engage directly in buffing graffiti or street art deemed offensive, or defending and restoring work deemed valuable. This analysis draws on repeat photography and video materials showing a series of attempted erasures of pro-same sex marriage murals by so called religious ‘activists.’ These materials show both the active challenges from passersby these erasures attracted, and the buffers’ defense of their actions, which affords a unique level of insight into the divisive social dialogue of this period.

Keywords:

• street art
• graffiti
• marriage equality
• repeat photography
• visual sociology

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers for their incisive critical comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Pell has since been acquitted of these charges.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Hansen

Susan Hansen is Co-Chair of the Visual & Arts-based Methods group in the Department of Psychology at Middlesex University London. Email: [email protected]