Zaris’ Proposal: Street Art
Like Nikita and Bethany, I believe exploring the street art of NYC would make for a unique and interesting class project. Street Art, both in the form of publicly funded murals and unsolicited graffiti, is inherently political. It reveals the most prominent struggles of a community and shows their priorities as a culture. The art found within a neighborhood will speak volumes of its culture, ethnic makeup, financial demographics and values. It would be incredibly insightful.
Being that we have about 20 people to help work on the project we could divide the group into 5 groups of 4. Each group will pick a borough to explore and then 2 people will look at a publicly funded mural and 2 people will pick a graffiti piece. Each group will provide an analysis of the piece, drawing on the historical context, neighborhood demographics and interpretation of the work. Depending on where the pieces are found it may also be interesting to collect interviews, asking the residents in the area their opinion and interpretation of the piece. However, I also think Nikita makes a nice point regarding the demolition of the Five Pointz. We may want to explore the impact demolishing that mural has had on the area and its values.
Generally speaking, we will just be interpreting and analyzing the art and then connecting them to the topics we learned in the Forner text about ethnic neighborhoods.
