Interview‘Graffiti is Perhaps the Most Democratic of All Written Artefacts’

3 June 2024

In public spaces, we encounter no type of written artefacts as often as graffiti. Still, it took a long time for researchers to become interested in them. In this interview, Ondrej Skrabal explains why this is the case and why graffiti is vital for our understanding of past and present societies.

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Ondrej Skrabal, everyone knows the term ‘graffiti’, but hardly anyone can define it. What exactly does it mean?

That’s not so easy to answer. Roughly speaking, there are two different accounts of the term. According to the first, ‘graffiti’ refers to anything that people write or draw in public space without permission; this view emphasises the transgressive, illegal character of graffiti and is very widespread today. According to a second view, the term refers to writing left in public or private space that, although not necessarily illegal, has no official status. Here, the aspect of informal communication takes centre stage. In any case, we are dealing with a term that is used to encompass a wide range of phenomena and forms of expression. This inevitably leads to difficulties when we try to give a precise definition.

In your new book, you explain that graffiti did not emerge in modern cities, but is a very old phenomenon – basically as old as writing itself.

That’s right. Wherever people learned to write, they eventually used this skill to leave written traces in public space. Of course, this does not apply equally to all social groups. Historically, it is predominantly men who have had access to literacy. For most of history, graffiti was therefore rarely produced by women – but this applies to all types of written artefacts. The interesting thing about historical graffiti is that it provides us with information about the lives and practices of social strata that are underrepresented in official histories. They were usually produced by people who were neither particularly rich nor influential and who otherwise left no marks in historical sources.

Opinions that are marginalised in public discourse will sooner or later appear on walls.

How do you as a researcher gain access to these traces today? Aren’t graffiti very ephemeral written artefacts?

Not necessarily. In fact, the widespread idea that graffiti is ephemeral says more about our attitude towards them than about their material properties. They were often carved into walls, engraved into stones, or cut into wood, making them more durable than most other written artefacts in terms of their physical features. They were and are deemed ephemeral mainly because hardly anyone makes an effort to care for and preserve them. Unlike formal inscriptions to which societies have accorded some kind of official status, graffiti have mostly been left to decay.

Is that why it took so long for them to be taken seriously by research? Graffiti have been systematically researched only for a few decades.

There is older research as well, famously on the graffiti in Pompeii, which dates back to the late 19th century. But it is true that graffiti studies only developed as a field much later. By and large, two essential factors stand out. Firstly, it took a long time until archaeology, which provides the material for these studies, had acquired the necessary means to document them. Secondly, it was only in the 20th century that the historical sciences turned their attention to social history instead of focussing primarily on outstanding individuals. The interplay of these factors has greatly favoured academic interest in graffiti.

Most people certainly associate graffiti with the colourful pieces that characterise our cityscapes today. What do the historical graffiti you are working on have in common with this modern form?

Then as now, graffiti is the most easily accessible means of making yourself visible in public space. In the past, this space was dominated by state institutions. Today, it is mainly the private sector that spends a lot of money to throw its messages at us everywhere in public. Graffiti allows individuals and marginalised groups who do not have these means at their disposal to attract attention to their views. In this respect, graffiti is perhaps the most democratic of all written artefacts. Opinions that are marginalised in public discourse will sooner or later appear on walls. Both historical and contemporary graffiti are so precious for research because they allow us to question and diversify prevailing narratives about past and present societies.

On 13 and 14 May, the CSMC offered a workshop on the topic of tagging, which you co-organised and which was run by the Spanish graffiti scholar Javier Abarca. What is tagging and what did you do during this workshop?

Tagging is a particular form of graffiti that emerged in North America in the 1960s and 1970s and spread from there to the rest of the world. In short, the term refers to writing one’s name in public space, although it is typically not the real name that is used, but an alias. A tag does not need to be legible; what matters is that it is recognisable. The letters are designed to strike balance between the traditional idiom and an intriguing, innovative look. A tag will not necessarily please the viewer, but it aspires to have an aesthetic appeal. It is certainly appropriate to consider tagging as a form of calligraphic art, and this is also how Javier approached the topic. Our participants learned how to recognise aesthetic qualities of tags, how to design their own tag, and how to develop a visual identity. We also talked about the cultural significance of tagging. Above all, the workshop left the participants with a new perspective on the written landscapes in the cities they live in.