Urban failures & other imaginations: walking, writing, and transgressing the gendered city

Abstract

This thesis discusses and disrupts normative standards of success within the public space, proposing queer and feminist readings on practices of intervening in urban surfaces, namely graffiti and street art. Within the context of reclaiming public space, graffiti and street art integrate, together with other performative actions, a ‘constellation of resistance’ (Lennon, 2014). These self-authorized, visual, and performative interventions in the public space raise issues of ephemerality, anonymity, vulnerability, and systems of value, thereby calling into question the ubiquitous neoliberal view on urban space. As capitalist and masculinist ideals dictate standards of success, unattainable for many, (queer) failure can be considered as a twofold resistance: as the refusal and critique of the dominant structure; and as the imagination of alternatives to be and to interact in the world. In this context, feminist and queer points of view have the potential to foster an alternative reading of the city, in which graffiti and street art represent a useful contribution in the urban landscape. However, it is not surprising to find gender inequalities related to urban expressions, such as graffiti and street art, in which women struggle to be recognized. If issues of mobility, exposure, visibility, and risk in the city are gendered, what are the implications, not only for reclaiming the public space, but also for its transgression? In order to tackle the paradoxical nature of graffiti and street art as both politically fertile and discriminatory against women, this research project analyses the ways graffiti, street art and similar expressions engage with issues relating to women in ways that are politically relevant. Drawing on an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that brings together visual culture, literary theory, urban and memory studies, this thesis discusses the political potential and limitations for women in the graffiti and street art worlds, from production to reception.