Graffiti sees the light of day as political art

What does democracy look like? An ongoing art project involving Indiana University and its campuses around the state has hundreds of answers to offer. Called "Writing on the Wall," the project is a collaboration between Betsy Stirratt, artist and director of IU's SoFA gallery; Joe LaMantia, a longtime Bloomington community artist; and IU's Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

Although many may see graffiti ("drawing or writing scratched on a wall or other surface") as more anarchy than art, the "Writing on the Wall" project highlights graffiti as a powerful, and political, art form. As evidence of its longstanding history as aesthetic expression, social and political graffiti can be found in Old Jerusalem, in mosaics from ancient Greece, in Mayan temple sites, and on the walls of ruins in Pompeii.

"Some of us may greet it with suspicion, but graffiti is arguably a great world art form," says IU President Michael A. McRobbie. "I'm very pleased that the university and its communities are joining together to support this project, which gives expression to one of this country's most cherished values: democracy. I'm also very grateful the Lilly Foundation for its contributions to IU's Moveable Feast of the Arts Program, which allows us to sponsor unique projects such as this one."

IU's Moveable Feast of the Arts program, launched three years ago, is designed to share the university's cultural resources with citizens across the state. "Writing on the Wall," which began this fall and continues into February 2008, is giving Hoosiers the opportunity to "tag" large mural walls with their personalized thoughts, ideas, and feelings about democracy and the world in which we live. Blank panels will travel to each of IU's campuses, engaging people from all regions of Indiana. So far, more than six panels have been filled by participants wielding markers and paint in Bloomington-from Buddhist monks to kindergartners. They've expressed themselves in cartoons, caricatures, drawings, and many words, in at least a dozen different languages.

Project collaborator Joe LaMantia has been watching the walls fill up. "Democracy is about making choices and keeping faith with those choices," he says of the project. "Faith-going forward even though we do not know what is going to happen-is also the main ingredient of creating art. Making a spontaneous choice to act is the first step of creativity and of politics."