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The Street Art Culture of Chile and Its Power in Art Education

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The Street Art Culture of Chile and Its Power in Art Education Culture-Language-Media Degree of Master of Arts in Upper Secondary Education 15 Credits; Advanced Level “We Really Are Not Artists, We Are Military. We Are Soldiers” The Street Art Culture of Chile and its Power in Art Education “Vi är inte konstnärer, vi är militärer. Vi är sodlater” Gatukonstkulturen i Chile och dess påverkan på bildundervisning Granlund, Magdalena Silén, Maria Master of Art in Secondary Education: 300 Credits. Examiner: Edström, Ann-Mari. Opposition Seminar: 31/05/2018. Supervisor: Mars, Annette. Foreword We would like to give a big thanks to all those whom have helped made this thesis possible: to all the people we have been interviewing and that have been showing us the streets of Santiago and Valparaiso. To Kajsa, Micke and Robbin for making sure we met the right people while conducting this study. To Annette Mars for all the guidance prior- and during the conducting of this thesis. To Mauricio Veliz Campos for all the support we were given during the minor field studies scholarship application, as well as during our time in Santiago. To Vinboxgruppis for your constant support during the last five years. And last but not least to SIDA, for the trust and financial support. Thank you! This thesis is written during the spring of 2018. We, the writers behind this thesis, have both come up with the purpose, research questions, method, interview guide, as well as been taking visual street notes together. 2 Abstract This thesis describes the street art culture of Chile and its power in art education. The thesis highlights the didactic questions what, how and why. With the Swedish art curriculum in upper secondary education (Skolverket, 2011) as a starting point, the following research examines what topics street artists in Chile address in their work; and how and how can educators in Sweden use street art in the classroom when they wish to highlight topics such as communication, identity and democracy, and with what purpose. The implementation of the study is based on a method of qualitative research. Semi structured- as well as informal interviews are used. Observation in form of visual field notes is presented through photography. This results in four different themes that is highlighted. The themes are cultural heritage, artivism and democracy, identity and school. The conclusion regarding what benefits street art may serve in school are that Swedish teachers in upper secondary art education can benefit from using street art in the art classroom when they wish to highlight the communicative aspects of street art. Another conclusion being made is that Chilean street artists use street art as a communicative tool when they wish to highlight topics such as cultural heritage, political views and as an identity marker. Keywords: street art, grafitti, art education, communication, identity, democracy, upper secondary school, Sweden, Chile, Santiago, Valparaiso 3 Table of Content 1. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 5 1.1. THE CHILEAN STREET ART CULTURE ................................................................................... 6 1.2. STREET ART: BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT ................................................................. 6 1.3. PURPOSE AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS ................................................................................... 7 2. PREVIOUS RESEARCH ........................................................................................................ 8 2.1. STREET ART AS A COMMUNICATION TOOL ............................................................................ 8 2.2. STREET ART AND IDENTITY .................................................................................................. 9 2.3. STREET ART AND DEMOCRACY ............................................................................................ 10 3. A SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVE ON LEARNING ..................................................... 12 4. METHOD ............................................................................................................................. 14 4.1. QUALITATIVE APPROACH..................................................................................................... 14 4.2. THE OBSERVATION ............................................................................................................. 14 4.3. THE INTERVIEWS ................................................................................................................ 15 4.4. PROCESSING OF MATERIAL .................................................................................................. 17 4.5. ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS ................................................................................................ 17 4.6. METHOD DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................... 18 5. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION ................................................................................. 20 5.1. CULTURAL HERITAGE ......................................................................................................... 20 5.2. ARTIVISM: STREET ART AS A DEMOCRATIC TOOL ................................................................ 25 5.3. STREET ART AND IDENTITY ................................................................................................ 34 5.4. STREET ART IN SCHOOL ...................................................................................................... 38 6. DISCUSSION ........................................................................................................................ 42 6.1 HISTORY ............................................................................................................................... 42 6.2. ARTIVISM ............................................................................................................................. 43 6.3. IDENTITY ............................................................................................................................ 44 6.4. SCHOOL ............................................................................................................................... 45 6.5. CONCLUSIONS ..................................................................................................................... 46 6.6. FURTHER RESEARCH........................................................................................................... 47 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 48 4 1. Introduction Imagery awakes emotions, especially images that cannot be avoided, like the ones in the public sphere. We, the writers behind this thesis, have both been blown away by powerful messages and beautiful murals both in Malmö as well as on our travels around the world. These murals rouse an interest for us in street art. Since street art is an umbrella term that comprises many different techniques, this thesis will first and foremost be focusing on murals and tags, Andersson (2006) describes tags as a concept used when graffiti artists write their name or their pseudonym on the walls. During the fall of 2016 we conducted a literary review on street art (Granlund & Silén, 2017). We learned a lot about the art form and found it to be a fascinating culture. During the literary review we both found street art to be an interesting communication tool and were curious to learn more about how art teachers can use street art in the upper secondary classroom. Skolverket (2011) states that the art education shall lead towards making sure students develop knowledge in how imagery communicate meaning as well as the ability to interpret their own and others imagery. It shall offer methods that leads to students developing an open attitude towards innovative- and creative thinking, as well as inventiveness and personal expression. It shall contribute to students developing knowledge regarding the laws within the field, as well as ethics connected to image construction (Skolverket, 2011). This content from Skolverket was a starting point for our previous review. Not only did we want to learn about how street art could be used during an art class, we also wanted to see if this medium could enhance students’ art abilities and thereby hand them the right tools to reach the curriculum passing standards. Initially our knowledge about street art were deficient but we wanted to deepen our competence in the field. During the literary view we conducted, the research question was: Which aspects may street art bring to the upper secondary art education? (Granlund & Silén, 2017). During our literary review the following conclusions were made: street art can be used during the upper secondary art education when one wishes to highlight aspects such as communication, law and democracy, as well as identity (Granlund & Silén, 2017). All areas stated have a strong connection to both the street art culture, as well as the Swedish curriculum for art in upper secondary education. With all these aspects in mind: the visual communicative part, the identity part, as well as the democracy part an interest was sparked for learning more about the street art culture in other countries. After doing some thorough research on countries where the street art culture is broad, Chile caught our interest due to their deeply rooted street art history. 5 1.1. The Chilean Street Art Culture
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