The ‘New Muralism and the Politics of Erasure: A study of public culture in Peru’ project is supported by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship grant, awarded to Dr Chandra Morrison (Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, LACC), and based at LACC.
In March 2015, over 60 murals adorning the historic centre of Lima were removed at the order of the city’s new mayor, erasing the visual imprint of the Latido Americano urban art festival and other mural productions endorsed by the previous administration. Lima’s new look generated instant and intense public debate in mainstream and social media, advocating both for and against the murals. Yet this clash over the urban image represents much more than a spat between political rivals; its ramifications reach to the core of public life in Peru.
Taking the 2015 mural erasure in Lima as its focal point, this project investigates what the rise and removal of new muralism signals about the state of public culture in contemporary Peru. It employs ethnographic, visual, and digital methods and critical discourse analysis to examine how disparate framings of urban murals in the public sphere are used to reinforce or challenge cultural hierarchies and social inequalities in Peruvian society, contextualised in the ascent of democracy, neoliberalism, and the creative city.
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Book Manuscript: New Muralism and the Politics of Erasure in Lima: Public Culture in the Creative City (in progress)
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Article: Murals in Mourning: Silent Bodies and the Performance of Cultural Resistance in Lima, Peru (in progress)
Events Organised:
Presentations:
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“Murals in Mourning: Silent Bodies and the Performance of Cultural Resistance in Lima, Peru” at La Calle para Tod@s: Critical Creativity in the Everyday of Latin American and Iberian Cities conference, Newcastle University (postponed to 2021).
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The British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Symposium on “Urban Violence”, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (6 – 8 March 2020).
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“Mural Festivals in Lima: From Painting the Urban Heartbeat to Taking Back the City” at the Art and Cinema in 21st-Century Peru: Aesthetics, Politics and Platforms conference, Senate House, the University of London (19 – 21 June 2019).
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“Graffiti Removal and Urban Renewal: The Cultural Politics of Erasure in Santiago de Chile” at the Pigment and Power: Seeing Latin America through Street Art symposium, LSE LACC (27 February 2019).
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“Graffiti Erasure and Cultural Politics in Chile: A Mapocho Mural Controversy” in the panel on ‘Street Art, Space, and Politics in Latin America: Urban Visions from an Emerging Field ’at the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) Annual Conference, the University of Southampton (22 – 23 March 2018).
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“Researching Graffiti: Reflections on Sources” at the Fieldwork in Developing Areas: Opportunities and Challenges workshop, University of London (17 June 2017).
Follow Chandra on Instagram (@chan_mor) for more photos of her research.