Nuart Journal #7 Trespass

144 pages
Edited by Martyn Reed and Susan Hansen
29.7 x 21 cm 
Language: English
Softcover
Publisher: Nuart Journal
2023

In a visual art counter-culture where seemingly the only “counter” left is the one with the cash register on it and where the streets that gave birth to this transgressive movement are now seemingly as tightly curated and policed as the institutions it sought to challenge, we thought we’d delve into the essence of what makes these cultural “desire lines” – these scars across power’s desire to shape our cultural identity – more essential than ever.

We’ll explore how public space is being transformed by power’s attempts to police unsanctioned and unsolicited forms of public expression and behaviour, from the tag to the illegal rave and to activist art in general, whether through the policing of public forms of art, the installation of “hostile architecture” or the general privatization and policing of public space through the imposition of a sliding scale of punishments from fines and penalties to physical violence – and ultimately death for those who wish to challenge and transgress them. We’re interested in exploring what new forms are emerging to challenge the growing homogeneity of the neoliberal city and how an alternative “street art/graffiti” reality of “no fences, no borders” can resist slipping into the realm of public art conformity.

This issue aims to focus on the socio-political, legal, geographical, cultural and economic determinants of what constitutes trespass and transgression in street art cultures and how these acts of creative resistance can act as a bulwark against a creeping transition towards neo-feudalism. It will also explore why, even after 20 years of getting up, of evading some of the most comprehensive and technologically advanced security systems known to humanity, you still pee your pants a little when stickering a public lamppost.