Paint as Protest: Analyzing Graffiti and Street Art

“Graffiti tells us a lot about what people are thinking about, particularly people who might not have access to wider political or social conversations; people who aren’t in decision-making circles,” explained University of Waterloo Peace and Conflict Studies Professor Eric Lepp. For the 2024 Benjamin Eby Lecture, Lepp will describe how graffiti and street art serve as valuable tools for examining social and political dynamics in conflict-affected societies. This year’s lecture is titled “Paint as a Protest” and will take place at Conrad Grebel University College on Thursday, November 14. The Eby Lecture is an annual event that presents the research of a Grebel faculty member.

Lepp will discuss how traditional research methods might miss nuances and details in people’s perspectives during conflict. He will include visual examples and ca se studies based locally in Kitchener, as well as from Northern Ireland and Cyprus. One case will focus on the red paint that was splashed on the Queen Victoria Statue in Kitchener in 2021. He will discuss the way that the message in this graffiti was amplified by the specific period of time in which it occurred. "To me, that symbolic red paint was a stark visual message that offered more value to discussions of a fraught Canadian national consciousness than any of the op-eds written in local newspapers or the calls for accountability that were being filtered towards me by my social media algorithms," Dr. Lepp remarked. 

Lepp has long been interested in street art and collaborates regularly with a group of scholars who have been engaging with graffiti in different conflict-affected societies since 2019. “The way graffiti, or a street art piece, can completely change the feeling of a space is really cool,” added Dr. Lepp. “As a researcher, I wanted to learn more about the way that paint on walls or statues can generate feelings of welcome and unwelcome in communities.” 

“In Peace and Conflict Studies, we teach that you can’t address the root causes of conflict if you take a top-down approach or focus your attention on the issues of elites,” Dr. Lepp continued. “Graffiti is often cast aside on the basis of illegality and vandalism by authorities, - and sometimes it is - but graffiti also provides a unique window into local perspectives and experiences. As a communicative practice, when we open our eyes to what is written on the walls around us, we can find messages of conflict, resistance, and disenfranchisement written by those who understand these issues best,” he continued. "The research that my colleagues and I conduct seeks to produce better methods for studying graffiti and to develop a deeper contextual understanding of what we are reading at specific moments in time.” 

By Tasbiha Ansari

Event Details   
Paint as Protest 
Thursday, November 14 at 7:30 PM 
Conrad Grebel University College Great Hall 
140 Westmount Road North, Waterloo, Ontario    
For more information, see the website or contact Mariia Smyrnova