In thinking about this assignment, I must admit that initially I did not know where I was going to place my sticker. Not because I thought it would be difficult to find a spot to put it, but because I do most of my traveling, which consists of daily trips to work and back, alone. Sure, each day I pass innumerable examples of graffiti and street art, but rarely do I have the time to stop to take a picture, let alone convince a passing stranger to hold the camera for me. For several days after we received our stickers, I pondered this.
The answer came to me while I was on my work on Saturday at 6:30AM (Yes, every Saturday I depart for work at 6:30AM). As I was walking down an empty Huntington Ave., I noticed a bit of street art portraying Gandhi smiling and throwing up his hand. The artist had taken some license with the design, but the message intended was not ambiguous. As I took a step back, I realized how interesting the picture was with Symphony Hall in the background in the early morning light. Considering my sticker looked a little down in the dumps to begin with, I stuck him under the Gandhi art (with tape, of course).
I wrote about this extensively in my paper, but I really like the idea that the main difference between place and space is perception. After discussing this further in class, I am even more convinced that street art as form is more about visibility than voice. It is not so much a medium to shout a clear message, but rather it allows artists to arrest their own identity in a place that they manufacture as their own, i.e. the transformation of place to space. By placing my downtrodden sticker next to a smiling Gandhi, I tried not so much to convey some greater message, but merely to remind people that, even though Huntington Ave. is often deserted on Saturday mornings, those who do travel through it can still leave their mark in the creation of space.
- Erin
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