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I like to consider myself a cultured person that appreciates the arts. I enjoy art galleries and learning the stories behind the masterpieces and above all, I love Neoclassical works by Jacques-Louis David (Oath of the Horatii, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Napoleon's Coronation). But the past two days I have been learning about an art medium that is difficult for me. I still fight myself over whether it really is art even!
  Yes, we are back to street graffiti. Is it an expression of a people or is it vandalism? That question may have to wait. Today we started to see a little bit better how much work actually goes into graffiti as we practiced on some walls. Here is a picture of my group's finished product.

The word in the middle of the sun is hope

  

While I may not want graffiti back home on my house, I have been trying to think of how it can be useful and meaningful in situations where people have little education, are locked in a economic class that can barely provide basic necessities and have little opportunity to change either. The power of graffiti, if used for the right purposes can be a powerful tool. I think of the anti-communist graffiti used by groups like the Solidarity movements in Poland during the Cold War or the movement in Egyptian graffiti to show the places where people were killed or to remember the revolution.
Symbols are amazingly powerful. Let's have an exercise instead of me ratting on and on.
What's the first thing that comes to mind when I say (write):

-a swastika

-a cross

-an eagle



What did you think of?
I suppose if you come from an Asian background you may think of the Reincarnation cycle when you see a swastika, but most Westerners link to Nazi Germany and Neo-Nazis.
The cross was an instrument for execution for thousands, but we see it as the symbol of Christianity, not the electric chair of the Roman Empire.
The eagle could bring images from any time period in the world. The legions of Rome, Aztec history, Napoleon's armies and the United States have all featured the eagle as a symbol of power.
 So what I am trying to remember when I am not understanding this art form is what Professor Fitzgibbon told us this morning. We're planting seeds with this group. We need to help through academic information and by example. They are fighting the same battle that someone else already fought (and largely won) in the United States. The battle for equality of race, gender, and opportunity (The American Dream) is a battle that we largely won as a society in the United States, even with all of our faults. But here the battlefield is still very hot and needs to be won. So I hope we can contribute with symbols that will bring hope, persistence and encouragement.