Sunday, April 4, 2010

Social Studies of Graffiti - Graffiti as Art

Last year, I blogged about Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur.

Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur is a project by Quinn Dombrowski documenting graffiti in public study areas in the Regenstein Library, the main library at the University of Chicago. Started in summer 2007, the collection contains over 700 pieces of graffiti. I had the honor of knowing Quinn and on occasions, translating some graffiti written in Chinese.

Her documentation records not only a sub-culture but a most detailed inner dialogues amongst the best people in the youth generation, and serves as a great tool of social study.

Quinn has been making rounds in media circle lately. BBC, Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, Der Spiegel (leading German magazine, similar to Newsweek or Times) and Chicago Tonight TV Show have reported or interviewed her and her book on the documentation.

Visiting her Flickr photo collections of graffiti is an experience like no others, hard to forget!

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