Cities are geographically and socially defined by their informal street art. Despite their ephemeral nature, vernacular street graphics never disappear entirely; their remnants are textured traces on street walls, urban furniture, and street photography. The alternative nature of these visual expressions becomes the spoken truths of artists and residents who use their urban environment as their canvases. Photographs of vernacular street graphics aim to bring to light underground art, commissioned work, and DIY advertisements that define a city’s visual landscape. They examine themes such as the passage of time and its impact on artworks, wall surfaces, and textures, the role of vernacular typography, and the viewers’ gaze on these artworks. When photographs record street art, they archive and make them available to viewers across different contexts. If public art’s inherent quality is to make the artworks accessible to more people by bridging the gap between creator and viewer, photographs of such works thaw urban memories. Street art photographs comment on those alternative artistic expressions and their temporality, which stems from being at the mercy of human and environmental elements. Through their pluralistic accounts, street artists hope to contribute to the visual memory of the city as a form of legacy. Their work, as recorded in photographs, shows that memory cannot be homogenous and isn’t faithful to a particular truth. Street graphics are, therefore, the visual expressions of individual memories and become part of a larger vernacular narrative frozen in time through photographs.

Authors:
Joumana Ibrahim, Istituto Marangoni, United Arab Emirates

About the Presenter(s)
Joumana is a faculty member in the Visual Design department at Istituto Marangoni in Dubai. Her research focuses on street art in post-conflict cities, exploring it as a mnemonic and transient art form.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joumana-ibrahim-a257ba10/

Additional website of interest
https://joumanaibrahim.myportfolio.com/work

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