Redefining Public Space: The OFFmuralES Feminist Art Collective in Tangible and Digital Contexts
In a digital era, our existence within public space holds diverse meanings. Traditionally, we’ve thought of public spaces as signifying an external quality: the public has historically been a realm set in contrast to our private lives. The advent of new communication technologies -- such as smart phones, iPads, and so on -- transformed our ability to engage with the public. At any time and in any place, we can immediately immerse ourselves in a social realm. These digital spaces which enable new modes of interaction can be distinguished from a tangible, non-private reality. I draw this distinction based solely on tangible spaces’ tactile quality; we can access our sensory experience of tangible, non-private spaces through touch and haptic capacities. Public spaces, on the other hand, do not necessitate tangibility. Our digital experiences position us in new kinds of publics; we share experiences together without occupying the same space and without our feet touching the same common ground. This non-haptic quality of contemporary public spaces speaks to lived, digital reality’s sense of expansiveness.
Engagement with a digital public space can have limitless potential. Take, for instance, the ability to share a work of street art with your camera’s phone. That photo can then be re-shared over and over again, potentially resulting in a viral media work. While the tangible work of art may exist on a wall, on a certain building, and in a particular city, the experience of that visual text -- made possible through digital sharing -- occupies a boundless space. In this analysis, I examine both how digitally-shared street art inhabits an expansive public space and what impact that space can have upon political objectives. I explore this space through the work of OFFmuralES, a Montreal-based, yet decentralized, feminist art collective. OFFmuralES provides a unique case study for understanding not only how politically-centered street art holds increased potential for consciousness-raising through digital technologies, but also how the simultaneously tangible and digital space this art is shared within extends opportunities for cultural activism. OFF-muralES began alongside the MURAL festival: a public celebration of urban art in Montreal. The women of OFFmuralES wanted to offer an alternative vision of street art which employed illegal artistic actions such as graffiti, wheatpasting, and yarn bombing. Led by a shared desire to resist oppression and colonialism, OFFmuralES artists create work that responds to the lived experiences of marginalized peoples. According to Lilyluciole of OFF-muralES,
“Regarding Off-muralES, it is composed only of women street artists. However, the initial motivations for participating in this group are different for each of us. We share the same values: anti-racism, anti-corporatism and feminism. I think we all try to assert our presence as women artists in the streets of Montreal while remaining as independent as possible. Regarding illegal street art, yes we claim this expression over all. In addition, the Off-muralES was created in reaction to MURAL Festival to offer an alternative vision of street art closest to social realities in which most of us live.”
Along with Lilyluciole, the collective started with Zola, Stela Starchild, Wall of Femmes, Harpy and Camille Larrivée, and joined by 52HZ and Zuzu. Although these various artists employ different artistic mediums and messaging, their shared values offer a common thread to the work. In this analysis, I limit my focus to the work of Stela and Wall of Femmes. These two projects demonstrate the unique relationship feminist street art shares with digital media. As both Stela and Wall of Femmes have gained considerable popularity in the Montreal street art scene, their work is now easy for locals to recognize and attribute to the respective artist. Within Montreal, this notoriety is a result of onlookers both bearing witness to the work in tangible space as well as sharing photos of the pieces through Instagram, Tumblr, and Facebook. Beyond Montreal, the artists gain recognition for their work primarily through the digital circulation of images capturing the street art.
If we turn to Stela Starchild’s work to begin with, we see how the artist’s signature style of juxtaposing stern or aggressive messages decrying street harassment and other sexist behavior with cutesy, wide-eyed girls and animals has created a digital presence. Stela has a significant Instagram and Facebook following that consistently engages with her work through online comment threads. These comments range from voicing strong love and support for Stela to messages indicating that they plan to engage in their own guerrilla street art activism. In response to this positive feedback, Stela made a Storenvy online shop where she sells original prints of her work on poster paper, doilies, and stickers. Of these various formats, stickers offer a unique opportunity for fans and burgeoning feminist street artists to engage in their own, boots-on-the-ground cultural activism.
Similarly, Wall of Femmes unites the digital and the streets in interesting ways. By graffiti stenciling the images and names of influential women on buildings, electrical boxes, and other visible structures, Wall of Femmes engage with tangible spaces in intentional ways. The women behind Wall of Femmes describe their project as an attempt to insert the women they highlight into public dialogues.
“With the Wall of Femmes collective, we try to carve out a space for these women, in a public place that is too often controlled by mainstream media. We want to acknowledge the way these women have improved our lives through their courage and hard work, and we are always open to suggestions on which inspirational women to feature on the blog, or in the street.”
Like Stela Starchild, Wall of Femmes’ work is shared widely on social media channels. As a result, the act of stenciling radical femmes has created a bit of a ripple effect. Not only have local Montrealers engaged with the graffiti by adding commentary in support near the art, stencils of revolutionary women have now shown up in Toronto as well. Beyond experiencing the art in tangible spaces, Wall of Femmes offers further engagement with the project by including a link to their website (walloffemmes.org) under much of the graffiti. The website indicates that they intend to offer printouts of stencils in the future for folks to engage with the project in their own communities.
Audience engagement with both Stela Starchild and Wall of Femmes takes the form of not just spectators in tangible spaces, but through digital realms as well. As a result, those who may have never seen the pieces in person, but witnessed their circulation on social media, enter conversations about the art. This sense of shared experience encompasses a new public -- one made possible by both interactions with tangible realms and digital technologies. The wheatpastes or stencils necessitate the artist’s involvement with haptic sensibilities, yet through digital sharing, others have joined the conversation by commenting on pieces’ social media presence and even creating art of their own. These OFF-muralES artists demonstrate the power of cultural activism to expand across tangible and digital contexts to produce new forms of public space as well as dialogues unique to those transformative spaces.
OFF-muralES 2015, Available: https://offmurales.tumblr.com
Vandalog 2015, Available: https://blog.vandalog.com
Wall of Femmes 2015, Availble: https://walloffemmes.org
