Documenting, analyzing, and archiving street art
responding to moments of friction and crisis
We are an interdisciplinary research team based at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Urban Art Mapping seeks to document, analyze, and archive street art responding to moments of friction and crisis. At this time, topics we explore include systemic racism, the Covid-19 pandemic, environmental challenges, and gentrification. Our goal is to arrive at a nuanced understanding of the relationship between street art and place, considering how art shapes and is shaped by unique neighborhoods.
Interdisciplinary
Research
Our collective backgrounds in folklore and cultural studies, geography, and art history shape the core methodology of our project. Through our research we seek to track responses to moments of crisis at locations associated with crisis, assessing text and images in the streets from a qualitative and a quantitative perspective.
Community-Based
Learning
Street art is ephemeral and fleeting, and it can reveal immediate responses to world events in a manner that can be raw, direct, and revealing. These visual expressions can help make externally visible what people think, believe, or feel both individually and in groups. Artists, activists, and community members help shape the archive through their documentary work and ongoing engagement with the project.
Educate
The study of street art is relevant to many disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences, including art history, cultural studies, geography, sociology, and urban planning. Our faculty directors engage students in an analysis of street art in our own classrooms, and we present our research to academic audiences and the broader community through conference presentations, lectures, and workshops. Educators around the world also use our archives in their teaching and research.
Listening is an essential part of the work our team does. In order to gain any understanding of the dynamics of street art and how it functions in communities, we need to listen to the people who created it, who encounter it, and those whose lives have been affected by it. We believe walls speak, but so do people – and we want to be there to hear as many stories as we can. Below are excerpts from interviews we have conducted in person and remotely with project collaborators – the dozens of folks who have been generous enough to share their stories with us.
