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Touchy, Genuine Hong Kong Style Circumcision (正宗港式包皮整形), Shenzhen, November 2013. Courtesy of Touchy.
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Since the mid-1990s, growing urbanization has led to the rise of new forms, needs and sites for visual self-expression in urban public space in mainland China. Drawing on periods of intensive fieldwork in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Hong Kong since 2006, this article suggests a new approach for examining the spatial politics of urban art images...
Citations
... The traffic light's base is supported by 28 turtle-shaped mailboxes cast in concrete, neatly arranged to form a solid foundation, conveying a heavy visual effect. He borrowed 350 live turtles from a Chinatown Chinese restaurant, which roam freely along the street, adding a vivid dynamic element to the entire scene (Valjakka, 2015). ...
... One of the most direct ways that arts places convey the message of sustainability and resilience is through visual and sensory interaction [10,29,64,72,89,91,100]. Among the different senses, these experiences exist in many forms such as "walk" [82], "visual" [34], and even "slow visual" [91], as well as "sound" [60]. Despite the different forms, the message is conveyed to the participants or visitors. ...
... Interviews with stakeholders [37,58,62,64,66,71,73,75,79,81,84,97,101,104,105,110] Participant observation [28][29][30][32][33][34]55,60,61,70,80,[86][87][88]90,91,98,106,108] Surveys and questionnaires [31,68,82,85,93,96] Combination of qualitative approaches [36,63,65,78,89,92,100,107] Quantitative approaches ...
... Another common qualitative approach utilized by the selected articles was participant observation, where researchers engaged in art-related events or community art projects as participants or observers [28][29][30][32][33][34]55,60,61,70,80,[86][87][88]90,91,98,106,108]. This immersive approach helped to capture the real-time dynamics and social impact of art spaces on urban communities. ...
This systematic review examines the role of arts places in fostering urban sustainability and resilience, investigating how these spaces contribute to long-term urban development goals. By synthesizing 79 peer-reviewed articles published between 2013 and 2024, this review identifies the mechanisms through which art spaces promote sustainability and resilience across economic, social, environmental, and cultural dimensions. Urban resilience is achieved through civic engagement and empowerment, as well as the repurposing the spaces to adapt to new uses within the community and strengthening cultural heritage and identity. Similarly, urban sustainability in different aspects, such as economic, environmental, and social, is fulfilled by new revenues from tourism income, as well as educational promotion on ecological issues through art. The findings reveal how arts places—ranging from permanent museums and galleries to temporary and public art installations—stimulate community engagement, economic revitalization, and environmental stewardship. This study provides a theoretical framework that illustrates the connections between the types of arts places, their initiators, and their intended outcomes. The results also highlight challenges such as gentrification and the tension between artistic and commercial purposes. Implications for urban planners and policymakers include integrating arts places into urban regeneration strategies. Future research should focus on quantitative measures of the long-term impact of arts places and their role in mitigating urban inequities.
... The examination of graffiti in Macau is positioned within the larger framework of graffiti research in China and throughout Asia as a whole. Previous Chinese graffiti studies have highlighted various socio-cultural factors that influence the production and reception of graffiti, including political climate, social norms, and urban development (Pan, 2015;Smith, 2020;Valjakka, 2015). While the relevance of these studies to this paper is weak, they provide a broader context for understanding the role of graffiti in Macau. ...
Plain Language Summary
Nostalgia and Graffitti This study examines the role of graffiti as a medium in urban spaces, particularly in the context of Macau. Graffiti, seen as a form of artistic expression, has the potential to invigorate and enliven public spaces. Utilizing visual ethnography methods and analyzing cultural policies, the paper aims to examine the presence of graffiti in various neighborhoods within Macau. The concept of nostalgia also serves as a theoretical framework to understand how graffiti can evoke memories and create an emotional connection to the past. By investigating hotspots like Largo do Estaleiro, Rua de S. Tiago da Barra, and the vicinity surrounding Ruins of St. Paul’s through interviews with residents and an examination of distribution patterns, we aim to comprehend how these graffiti sites can establish a link to history and contribute to a shared memory and sense of locality. The findings of this research have important implications for urban planning and cultural policy in Macau, as they highlight the significance of incorporating graffiti as a legitimate form of public art that can contribute to the cultural identity and sense of nostalgia in urban spaces.
... A driving idea in such cases is to separate desirable "artworks" from unwelcome "vandalism", and consequently protect (some) instances of the former category while erasing instances of the latter (Denis and Pontille, 2021;Hansen and Flynn, 2015;Young, 2014). Legal walls may play a part in this mode of regimentation, not least in states where freedom of speech is restricted (Chang, 2019;Valjakka, 2015). These strategies may veer on repressive tolerance, accepting a narrow category of desirable, sanctioned graffiti, while discounting the acceptability of its unauthorized counterparts. ...
... The term 'graffiti writing' is used in much literature, or even 'writing' for short in Brighenti (2010). Arguing that 'graffiti' is undefined and treating graffiti as visual culture, Valjakka (2011Valjakka ( , 2015 prefers 'graffiti images' or even 'urban art images' . We respect the writing tradition of graffiti, though our data are more properly described as 'graffiti art' , which refers to the colorful, large-scale pieces or murals. ...
... Nam Van Lake Underground may resemble 'legal walls' (Chang, 2019), but only a few professional graffiti writers are invited to create murals. Graffiti Park looked like a 'semi-legal site' (Valjakka, 2015), though the government rejected the proposal to make it a permanent site for graffiti writing and eventually turned it into a car park in 2016. ...
... Nonetheless, we do not see institutional appropriation as 'visual propaganda' (Valjakka, 2015) or 'co-option of street art' (Schacter, 2014) by the government. Graffiti writing in Macao has not reached the degree of 'strict control' (Pan, 2014) as graffiti writers have their own free will in collaborating with the government. ...
Multimodal graffiti are constrained by the environment in which they are written and by the activities in which graffiti writing takes place. This article examines graffiti collected in Graffiti Park and Nam Van Lake Underground in Macao. The graffiti in the two sites display systematic differences in topics, objectives, subjects, affordance, texture and framing, which are attributed to varied activity types and the multimodality/materiality of public space. Specifically, those in Graffiti Park – a small and secluded area – are products of one-off activities attended by professional writers, ordinary citizens and tourists. Nam Van Lakeside has a more visible space, and yet the graffiti there – largely murals painted by a few commissioned writers – display limited topics/themes under institutional appropriation. The materiality of the wall space also contributes to the variations in styles and contents of graffiti in the two sites.
... In 2011, these practices were further enhanced by responses to the arrest of the contemporary Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. The concern of 'mainlandisation', the PRC's growing impact on the socio-political and cultural spheres in Hong Kong, has spurred a variety of actions by citizens, activists, and artists in the past two decades to voice their concerns through specific aesthetics that reflect both the indigenousness and transculturality of the city (Valjakka 2015b). The residents of Hong Kong know how to intervene and reappropriate the urban public space through varied tactics to spread the message, and the highly international nature of the city frequently makes it a fruitful platform for globally popular artistic and creative practices. ...
... I propose that the potential of Lennon Wall to enhance social cohesion and citizenship among the movement's participants and to advocate the main message is better grasped through analyzing the multilayered translocal site-responsiveness of the project. This is not limited to the spatiotemporal analysis but also takes into account the forms and intentions of agency, and considers the formal analysis of the manifestation itself (Valjakka 2015b(Valjakka , 2018. As indicated above, the project gained unseen symbolic power from the transcultural relation to the John Lennon Wall in Prague, from the diachronic relation to the previous claims of 'Civic Square' in Hong Kong, and from the physical and contextual features of the site as the wall of the Central Government complex at the very centre of the Admiralty occupation site. ...
The versatile forms of artistic and creative practices sparked by social movements worldwide are not limited to artists’ intentional aims to create artworks. Instead, most of the mixed-method interventions usually emerge from citizens’ aspirations to support the cause. While the interconnectedness of culture, arts, and social movements is widely acknowledged, the fluidity and interrelatedness of agency, intentions, and perceptions – which contribute to a more nuanced acknowledgement of emerging spatial and aesthetic tactics and strategies of citizenship for reappropriation of the urban public space – have not yet been adequately addressed. Drawing on de Certeau’s understanding on ‘the procedures of everyday creativity’ and the more recent studies of ‘vernacular creativity’, I propose further examination of ‘socially engaged creativity’. Employed as a multilevel analysis together with ‘socially engaged art’, it seeks to facilitate a closer examination of these often open-ended processes which are not necessarily preconceived or perceived as ‘art’. More importantly, it highlights how these creative practices aspire to provide sites for sharing, learning, and participation to enhance awareness of socio-political and cultural issues by citizens – even beyond social movements – and how (re)constructing citizenship and socio-political participation in the public space can build towards social transformation. This new framework hopes to broaden out the predominant discourse on ‘socially engaged art’ as a project initiated and led by artists by placing the focus on creative co-authoring of the space by citizens. Through an in-depth analysis of the Lennon Wall Hong Kong, co-authored in 2014, this paper has a twofold aim: to call for a more inclusive and detailed approach to examine the varied aspects of agency, intentions, and perceptions that constitute the partially overlapping range between ‘socially engaged art’ and ‘socially engaged creativity’; and to promote a more critical investigation of ‘artification’ processes.
... The contributions of foreign artists and practitioners are facilitating the rise of novel subjectivities, sites, and interventions. Inspired by discussions on interrelations of art and street art with site (Kwon 2000(Kwon , 2004Bengtsen 2013Bengtsen , 2014Valjakka 2015) and translocality (Low 2016; Brickell and Datta 2011), I propose the framework of translocal site-responsiveness to deconstruct local/global dichotomies and to contribute to a more rounded understanding of artistic and creative practices. The analysis of selected examples reveals the interdepen dence between the varied forms of agency, manifestations, and site/place/ space and contextualizes these negotiation processes in local and global discourses. ...
... Forms of urban creativity, such as contemporary grafffijiti and street art, are also employed for offfijicial purposes(Valjakka 2015: 258-260). 5 This approach aims to be more comprehensive than my previous takes on the topic (cf.Valjakka 2015). ...
... For a brief historical study of urban creativity in Beijing and in Shanghai, including Zhang Dali's( , b. 1963) limited contribution, seeValjakka (2015Valjakka ( , 2016. ...
... Graffiti is a guerrilla movement that targets to communicate directly with the community about some themes and it has its own social rules, jargon and ethical rules like one shall not paint on others' work (Atione, 2016;Claes & Vande Moere, 2017). It is known that street artists can express their art and sign with their tags in their streets or regions to develop their career and publicise solo (one), in groups (crew) or in gangs (Atione, 2016;Ley & Cybriwsky, 1974;Valjakka, 2015). ...
Humanity has always been in a struggle to express itself to others. They conveyed through marks and symbols on cave walls, head stones, clay tablets and papyrus before the invention of writing and society. Today urban areas and especially streets are places that carry social marks first-hand. They retain these semiotic signs and become a collective of symbols that link the past to the present and future. Graffiti, which is a part of such communication, is the way people express emotions and ideas to society through symbols. In this study, the attitude of the residents in Izmir City about graffiti, whether they see it as an art form or visual pollution, is studied. A survey was applied to 100 citizens, including fieldwork, photo-shoots and interviews done with 20 people. Part of the graffiti in Izmir urban identity is determined and the results are presented.
In China, as in the West in recent decades to a lesser degree, the semantics of ‘graffiti’ have gradually become an alternative term for graffiti murals in urban renewal. Graffiti murals, through various renewal strategies, reproduce the wall spaces of old towns, factories and villages in Chinese urban areas, giving rise to diverse aesthetic attitudes. Taking Guangzhou, China, as a case study, this article utilizes graffiti mural images defined as ‘graffiti’ by people on social media as the basic material. Visual research methods such as photo evaluation and eye-tracking experiments are employed to analyse the aesthetic attitudes and mechanisms of mainstream street art, which in fact differ from traditional graffiti. The study reveals that people perceive different types of graffiti mural spaces in various ways, with a more positive aesthetic attitude towards urban mural landscapes that exhibit aesthetic coherence. Viewers with embodied practice experiences in ‘graffiti’ show stronger aesthetic emotions compared to those who have not visited the case study location. These differences are further influenced by the aesthetic atmosphere of the environment and the aesthetic practices of different subjects onsite, deviating slightly from the spatial aesthetic operational logic of traditional graffiti. From various perspectives on Chinese ‘graffiti’, the visual methodology constructed in this study provides new insights for the aesthetic management of urban renewal.
