Urban Art Mapping, an interdisciplinary research team, has been documenting, mapping, and archiving street art in the Twin Cities since 2018. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020, urban space in the Twin Cities was transformed by graffiti and street art, including words and images expressing a wide range of emotions, demands, and visions for the future. In the years since, we have focused our work on street art that was a part of, was inspired by, or that deals with the lingering issues and emotions expressed during that uprising in our city as well as other places around the world. Our recent focus on Black Lives Matter street murals have helped us see the way murals, stickers, graffiti, and other street art form an interconnecting web of vernacular expression that serves as a monument to the uprising. In addition to documenting and archiving, our work now is to work to understand the complex social and cultural contexts that allow art in the streets to more fully reveal the voices of communities that often go unheard.

Bios:

David “Todd” Lawrence teaches African American literature and expressive culture, folklore studies, and cultural studies at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. He is co-author of When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, MO (2018), winner of the 2019 Chicago Folklore Prize. An ethnographer, folklorist, and literary scholar – his work sits at the intersection of identity, narrative, community, and culture.

Heather Shirey is a Professor of Art History at the University of St. Thomas. Her teaching and research focus on race and identity, migrations and diasporas, and monuments, memorials, and street art in relation to public space and communities.

Dr. Lawrence and Dr. Shirey are co-creators of the George Floyd and Anti-Racist Street Art Database and co-directors of the Urban Art Mapping research project. These activist archives are driven by our understanding that it is crucial to document and analyze street art not only because its ephemerality, but also because it captures the complexity of the experiences shaping the world today.