Format: Paper presentations with discussion
Convenors:
Dr Ursula K. Frederick, University of Canberra, Australia
ursula.frederick@canberra.edu.au
Dr Antonia Thomas, University of Highlands and Islands, Scotland
Antonia.Thomas@uhi.ac.uk
Graffiti occupies a contentious position in the contemporary world. Maligned on the one hand as vandalism, while celebrated as contemporary art on the other. Yet archaeological research reveals a much more complex picture of graffiti production and reception. The examination of graffiti as artefact and text has revealed important information about the social, political, ceremonial and everyday lives of people from the ancient world to the middle-ages and late modernity. And to the degree that graffiti interventions in the present are deployed by activist cultures and political groups seeking to highlight issues and contribute to public debate, graffiti is necessarily linked to our heritage futures.
Nonetheless, graffiti remains undertheorised in archaeological research and heritage management and this session aims to go some way in addressing that lacuna. We are especially intent on exploring the behaviours, social relations and material practices underpinning and motivating graffiti actions and their repercussions, as well as performative engagements with place. As such, this session also invites consideration of graffiti-adjacent practices of inscription and place-marking, such as stone-stacking, love-locks or spontaneous memorial-making. While this session is not intended as a forum for technical papers addressing conservation concerns and methods, we will accept innovative approaches to understanding the issues that graffiti may present, particularly in a cross-cultural setting. We seek papers that offer new empirical pathways and theoretical possibilities to the study of graffiti in archaeology and heritage contexts, innovative case studies and provocations that aim to shape and redefine the field. We particularly welcome proposals from marginalised voices and communities and are keen to encourage responses from a wide geographical and temporal range.
Papers:
Archaeology, Graffiti and Homeless People in Arica, Chile
Cristopher González, Departamento de Antropología. Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile
Rocío Fuenzalida, Departamento de Antropología. Universidad de Tarapacá, Arica, Chile
From antiquity to the present, graffiti has been associated with marginalised communities. Historical and archaeological evidence shows that graffiti is part of the material world of homeless people, whether as a means of individual expression, an ethnic marker, or even as an elaborate system of communication. Through the discussion of sites with the presence of graffiti and the material culture of homeless people, this paper explores graffiti as a practice that materialises and symbolically constructs marginal spaces in the city of Arica, in northern Chile. Graffiti emerges as a way to approach various aspects of homelessness, such as the formation of counterpublic spaces, social relationships and kinship networks, tensions surrounding the notion of home, and the construction of the drug-addicted subject.
Catchin’ Hands and Burnin’ Pages: The Importance of Black Books in Graffiti Culture
Tyson Mitman, Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Criminology, York St John University, UK
Stefano Bloch, Associate Professor, Director of Graduate Studies, School of Geography, Development & Environment, Faculty, Graduate Program in Social, Cultural & Critical Theory, The University of Arizona, USA
In graffiti culture black books are one of the most personal, important, and prized possessions a writer may have. Black books function as practice spaces, places to plan out graffiti works, as autograph books, and as evidence of important connections within a graffiti network. But their possession can be a risk if the authorities confiscate them. Despite the complicated social function of them, they have received almost no attention from academia.
This project examines black books to better understand their cultural value, how they move within a community of graffiti writers, and how they convey status onto the graffiti writer who possesses them and the writers featured within them. This also examines the risk owning a black book can pose. To do this, this project draws on participant observation experiences with graffiti writers and stories from graffiti writers themselves. It frames black books as status items that move in a complex way through a community of committed practitioners, analysing black books and their movement through the lens of Malinowski’s Kula ring. The goal of this project is to explain how subcultural status is produced, transferred, and put at risk through the cultural exchange produced through black books.
‘Mere Wall-scratchings by Different Hands’: Nine Centuries of Graffiti in the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, Scotland, UK
Antonia Thomas, Archaeology Institute, University of the Highlands and Islands, Scotland
The word graffiti was first used in English in 1863 to describe the inscriptions found within the Neolithic passage grave of Maeshowe, in Orkney, Scotland. Now part of the Heart of Neolithic Orkney World Heritage Site, the tomb was built c.5,000 years ago, but the graffiti are runic, carved by Norse intruders in the 12th century AD. Amongst 30 or so inscriptions are crude boasts of rune-carving skill and sexual activity, treasure and crusades, but most are simple names and statements of existence. In content, they are strikingly similar to modern-day graffiti, but their pastness has transformed them into high status artefacts— the finest collection of runes outside of Scandinavia and a valuable heritage asset. There are a wide range of other unsanctioned inscriptions in the World Heritage Site too, but recent marks are dismissed only as vandalism, without any consideration of their wider social context and significance. This paper will use these varied forms of graffiti as a way of discussing the polarised and often-arbitrary value distinctions drawn between comparable types of mark-making, and the role that social media, popular culture, and the heritage industry play in determining ‘good’ and bad’ graffiti in archaeology.
Come to Uluru, Leave Your Crystals at Home
Taylor Foster, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Cultural Heritage Team Leader
Ursula K Frederick, University of Canberra, Centre for Creative and Cultural Research – Senior Research Fellow
Nicholas Hall, Parks Australia, Director – Cultural Heritage
Leroy Lester, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Anangu Engagement
Rita Okai, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Anangu Engagement Team Leader, Board of Management Member
Shaeleigh Swan, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, Park Manager
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people come to visit the great red monolith that is Uluru. Most come to experience the awe-inspiring landscape and learn about the living culture and traditions of Anangu. Some visitors, however, are on a different journey, one which leaves biproducts and an accumulation of human impacts. When visitors behave inappropriately, entering prohibited areas, this leaves an emotional scar for Anangu and can result in items getting left behind that don’t belong in the park, such as graffiti, crystals, offerings and memorials. In most cases, the actions undertaken are illegal, but stopping this behaviour is no easy task. A collaborative project between Anangu, University of Canberra and Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park staff, we hope to examine who is undertaking this behaviour and what is motivating their actions. This paper will outline the scope of the issue and present some of our initial findings regarding the nature of the materials left behind and the impacts this has on the cultural and natural heritage values of the Park. While visitors are welcome to come and learn about Uluru and the living Anangu culture, our hope is that they can leave their chakras and crystals at the gate.
Raising the Dead – Chalk Graffiti, a Gentle Memorial of Hidden History
Diane Eagles, MA Contemporary Art and Archaeology, University of The Highlands and Islands
In 2005 Luis and Carol Garrido located the lost grave of the visionary artist, poet, and printmaker William Blake in Bunhill Fields, London. The investigation also located the grave of Catherine, his wife. In 2018, a grave marker was finally laid for William Blake. To date, his wife’s grave remains unmarked, despite a recent re-appraisal of the importance of her influence and contribution to many aspects of her husband’s life and work.
In 2022, with permission, I marked a place near Catherine’s grave with a chalk stencil artwork of an illustration she would have helped print in 1794.
My presentation will consider chalk graffiti as a gentle way to memorialise hidden history, enabling overlooked people to be seen and held in mind, even if in a temporary, transient way. I’ll show images from ‘hitting the heaven spot’, a series of chalk stencils artworks at the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney to highlight the use of chalk stencil graffiti to mark historic places as a form of awareness raising and a revisioning of historic sites, bringing to life something otherwise hidden and unknown, reflecting upon graffiti’s capacity to empower.
Memory and Oblivion: Archaeology of Graffiti in Abandoned Industrial Places
João Luís Sequeira, University of Minho, Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences (CICS NOVA), IHC, FCT
Graffiti is an omnipresent yet often overlooked aspect in abandoned industrial sites, being both an indication of abandonment and an act of cultural defiance and appropriation. Within the subject of ‘Humanising Industrial Archaeology’, in which I try to examine the archaeology of abandoned industrial sites critically, graffiti emerges as an element that shapes how these spaces were used, perceived, contested, and also reclaimed. This presentation explores graffiti as an ephemeral and persistent trace of social engagement with post-industrial ruin. Based on a few Portuguese case studies, I will share how these remains serve as expressions of nostalgia, resistance, and identity, challenging established narratives on industrial heritage.
Rather than treating graffiti merely as a vandalism act or a concern about the authenticity of industrial spaces, I argue these are alternative forms of storytelling, which oppose conventional heritage discourses. Based on archaeology, heritage studies, and visual culture, I debate the tension between institutional heritage frameworks and informal and popular engagements with these spaces. By highlighting graffiti within industrial archaeology, this presentation seeks to reframe its role from an anomaly to an important factor of heritage interpretation, questioning what and whose voices are preserved in the process of research.
“You Are Not Worth the Dirt on my Shoe”: Exploring Intimate Iconoclasms in the Caves at Bamyan, Afghanistan
Dr Constance Wyndham, independent researcher
Baqir Fazeli, University of Bamyan, Afghanistan
The destruction of the 6th century Bamyan Buddhas by the Taliban in 2001 was an iconoclastic spectacle, much theorised and discussed in the global media and heritage sphere, resulting in the World Heritage listing of the site by UNESCO. A lesser-known aspect of this site is the 750 human made caves hewn into the cliff faces on either side of the Bamyan Valley. These caves were historically filled with cave paintings showing representations of Buddhas, bodhisattvas and Buddhist monks, among other motifs, some of which have survived. A range of graffiti and iconoclastic practices have also taken place in these caves which, thus far, have largely been dismissed as vandalism, deemed unworthy of attention and considered archaeologically too ‘recent’ by heritage professionals. Drawing on ethnographic research undertaken in Bamyan and an analysis of dates and text, this paper looks at preliminary results of research into a few examples of these more intimate engagements with Buddhist imagery and architecture at this site. In doing so, we acknowledge the agency of those involved, explore ideas of destruction and belonging, and demonstrate how the meaning and value of this place is constantly being negotiated and renegotiated at the local level.
I Should Really Write This Up
Dr Sarah May, Co-Director ButCH (Bureau for the Contemporary and Historic), UK
Graffiti is often framed as a claiming of territory, a method of writing yourself into a place with cultural power, a practice that leverages the location and history of building to articulate political, social and artistic concepts. All of which sounds a lot like the academic publishing of archaeological research. I’ve been studying graffiti and related practices, especially in places claimed as heritage, for over a decade now. I’ve looked at graffiti as an indicator of the history of ruination; graffiti as a valuable commodity; and recently how tourism stickers can be understood as part of these practices. While I have presented many conference papers related to that work, I have not published them. Trying to encourage myself to do so leads me to reflect on why? What are the ethical issues involved in publishing this material? Who gains from it? Rather than sharing my ideas on walls, I’m sharing walls in my ideas. In this presentation I will investigate graffiti and related practices from Netley Abbey in England, Rome and Southern Sweden to think about how we write ourselves into the world and what happens when we do so. And maybe I’ll write it up.
Graffiti as Unstable Statement, Negotiation, and Subversion of Power
Laura McAtackney, University College Cork, Ireland
This paper will move between a number of case-studies in the Irish context to explore how graffiti – broadly conceived – can be used to reveal power dynamics between and within groups. It is my contention that at particularly politically loaded places graffiti can reveal differentials of power that includes how particular narratives are proclaimed, contested and change over time. This paper will briefly consider two case-studies that have elements in common and contrast in order to reveal how the form, location and temporal nature of graffiti relates to the value transition—or not—at places with difficult pasts. The first case-study will be the graffiti at a former site of political incarceration that has subsequently become a national heritage site in the capital of Ireland—Kilmainham Gaol—and the second case-study is graffiti at a site of conflict-related atrocity associated with enduring legacies of injustice, which has not transitioned to heritage. It will consider what the dynamic nature of graffiti can tell us about the changing meaning of these places and how the materialise sense of closure or enduring trauma.
Graffiti Across Time: Vandalism or Traditional Practice?
Emma Bryning, University of York; English Heritage
Rarely have the themes of historic and contemporary graffiti overlapped. Contemporary graffiti can be highly contentious: it represents both an art form and a subcultural movement but can also constitute vandalism and criminality. The term ‘graffiti’ is often understood through this modern definition, but in Britain it was only in the 19th century that the act of graffiti began to be viewed under this lens. Examining graffiti across time can not only reveal diverse stories which have been ‘hidden’ in plain sight but can also provide an alternative history for heritage sites and evidence of a traditional practice that continues, in some places, to the present day. This paper will draw on graffiti recorded from over forty English Heritage sites, presenting a brief insight into a history of graffiti creation on heritage assets in England. It will also touch on examples of contemporary graffiti recorded throughout the project—including subcultural graffiti practices and marks relating to the COVID-19 pandemic—to explore the different motivations behind why people continue to leave graffiti. Finally, it will explore how combining historic and contemporary research can challenge the strict dichotomy between vandalism and preservation within heritage management.
“Soufriere, Go to Sleep!”: Ash Graffiti as Dark Geocultural Heritage in Contemporary Montserrat
Miriam A. W. Rothenberg, University of Oxford, UK
Between 1995 and 2010, repeated explosive eruptions of the Soufrière Hills volcano blanketed the island of Montserrat in a thick layer of volcanic tephra (ash). Today, around the volcanic ‘Exclusion Zone’, Montserrat’s volcanic ruins and landscapes have become a material form of ‘dark geocultural heritage’, attracting disaster tourists, urban explorers, and seekers of tragedy, but also working profound impacts on local Montserratians. Within these ‘traumascapes’, a unique form of graffiti proliferates on abandoned buildings: names, dates, and symbols drawn with fingers onto the ash residue that coats windows, mirrors, walls, and floors. The ash graffiti have been created by locals crossing into the Zone, members of the diaspora community returning to the island, and other tourists delighting in the exploration of a volcanic wasteland. This paper engages with the ash graffiti as episodes of ‘mark-making’ that speak to the desire to mark presence, adventure, and even ownership. The ash graffiti are here viewed as agentive art designed to inscribe humanity and persistence onto the volcanic ruins, maintain connections to place, and re-assert control over a landscape traumatically wrested from the community by the volcano.
Roadside Memorials as Graffiti-Adjacent Place-Marking: Inscription, Memory, and the Politics of Space
Cassie J. Gordon, independent researcher, Australia
This paper explores roadside memorials as forms of informal inscription that blur the boundaries between personal grief, public memory, and sanctioned heritage. Drawing on archaeological approaches to contemporary material culture, it positions these memorials within a wider spectrum of unsanctioned place-marking practices. Like graffiti, roadside memorials intervene in public space in ways that are both emotionally charged and politically significant—sometimes welcomed as meaningful expressions of loss, and at other times dismissed as visual intrusions, distractions, hazards, or even vandalism. Framed through theoretical perspectives on spatial production (Lefebvre) and transgressive geographies (Cresswell), this paper considers how roadside memorials function as contested sites of inscription and remembrance. It examines social and emotional tensions surrounding their presence and management, raising questions about how informal heritage is perceived and regulated. Case studies highlight instances where memorials have been removed, tolerated, or transformed, revealing parallels with how graffiti is policed and interpreted. Ultimately, the paper argues that roadside memorials demand deeper archaeological engagement as ephemeral yet powerful sites of contemporary personal heritage. By situating them as graffiti-adjacent acts of place-making, it invites a reconsideration of how inscription, memory, and authority intersect in the negotiation of public space.