“Now, be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?” -Elizabeth from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
Graffiti is often viewed as a highly anti-social behavior; however, I think it is quite the opposite. In this case, and in many others, graffiti serves as a method to anonymously communicate a personal “thought, wish, or attitude”(Gach) with the outside world. In our modern social setting Graffiti is “the major form of creativity in America today” (Gach). It is more than just vandalism, it is a way for a person to achieve autonomy and escape a traditional social setting. Historically speaking, graffiti’s creators were “usually suppressed individuals in society, for example slaves working in monumental construction or prisoners inside jail cells” (Kan). Thus this “latrinalia” is a way in which those feeling suppressed by their social roles can escape and speak to others around them through a common memory.
What is fascinating about these writings is the issue of authorship. Most authors of memorials are not widely advertised, so as to create the illusion of a memorial without a single author, but instead as a correct representation of a larger group. As for this memorial, while the poems have authors, the actual scribbles do not. Sure, somebody did physically have to go and write the poetry, but it would be virtually impossible to discover the culprit. Like Jochen Gerz’s Monument Against Facism, this monument is composed of multiple voices, all given equal representation. For the back of bathroom stalls there will never be a single voice or message. Even while I was creating this project more writings were added to the stalls, making it a dynamic voice that can never be pinned down.
“The bathroom stalls at the Gate provide a forum that students from every walk of life must come face to face with. They are a portal to the widest possible audience. Thus the poetry that was once inscribed upon them had the power to reach out to students of all interests and passions and backgrounds. When you read the poetry you had the sense that so many others before you had read those same words, and so many others had yet to read them. You were confronted by that poetry at the most random times of the day, and perhaps for this reason it would stir your thoughts for a long time afterwards.” Emma
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