Date of Award
2018
Document Type
Honors Thesis (Open Access)
Department
Colby College. Anthropology Dept.
Advisor(s)
David Strohl
Second Advisor
Winifred Tate
Abstract
This thesis explores street art in Tel Aviv, Israel through anthropological concepts of value. By defining street art as an interstitial practice—one that exists between permeable, socially defined boundaries and is characterized differently by different power structures—I attempt to define some of the different regimes of value that apply to street art. Using the emerging market of “street art tours” as a fieldwork site, I look at how street art is presented and re-presented to both tourists and locals. By situating my research in a historical and geographic context, I hope to understand the ways different value schema, from economic to aesthetic to political and more, are overlaid in different ways by different actors onto the same works of art. I also address how these interstitial value schema, which can be contradictory and seemingly oppositional, interact within the systems of power that street art operates within. I argue that these power structures cause different actors in the street art world to privilege and prioritize different forms of valuation.
Keywords
street art, graffiti, public art, value, interstitial, Israel, Tel Aviv
Recommended Citation
Bird, Rachel R., "What the Walls Say: Finding Meaning and Value in Tel Aviv’s Street Art" (2018). Honors Theses. Paper 896.https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/honorstheses/896
Included in
Contemporary Art Commons, Human Geography Commons, Interdisciplinary Arts and Media Commons, Islamic World and Near East History Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Modern Art and Architecture Commons, Near and Middle Eastern Studies Commons, Painting Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons