Hi welcome back to week 5 of my blog! This past week we studied a lot about street art and activism with ‘The Slumlord Project’ in Baltimore. One theory we focused on was the Broken Windows Theory. This theory is entails visible signs of crime and anti-social behavior that creates an urban environment to encourage further crime and disorder. We also focused a lot on The Slumlord Project. The Slumlord Project was focused on aiming to renew the social contract in communities hit hard by crumbling real estate, crime and diminished opportunity. A lot of attention was focused on abandoned homes. Seventeen artists took on the project of going around to these abandoned homes and spray painted them to help bring them back to life. Some projects we studied within The Slumlord Project were the Harelequinade, Nanook, Jetsonorama and Stefan Ways. The Harelequinade catalyzes a larger conversation about Baltimore’s ignored vacancy issue. Nanook combines art and activism. It installs unauthorized artwork on various dilapidated vacant houses. In the Jetsonorama, the lyrics of the song appear around the outside of the photo as a shoutout to the city and Stefan Ways is a mixed-media piece of a Raven building a nest. Thank you for tuning in and I will be back next week with more exciting information.
Civic Media Blog 