© Susan Hansen

Part of
‘Walking the City’ TCCE Annual Walking Weekend 2016

Walk Guide:  Susan Hansen and Magali Peyrefitte,
Middlesex University London

Duration: about 60 minutes

This live photo-sharing walk will take participants on an interactive walk through the graffiti and street art of Turnpike Lane.

Turnpike Lane is an area now experiencing gentrification. Examples of both street art murals by better known artists (e.g., Shepard Fairey and Banksy) and anonymous graffiti tags are abundant.

Graffiti and street art are ubiquitous in the urban landscape but remain a hot topic. The discussion often remains polarised between what is considered art and what is considered vandalism.  

This walk is not (just) another street art tour and instead presents a unique opportunity for participants to critically engage in discussion in-situ, adopting a ‘walking-with’ methodology, encouraging  participants to live photo-sharing via Instagram, with the option of a post walk discussion of the photographs shared by participants (at a local café close to Turnpike Underground Station).

Social photo-sharing is a popular means of communication about graffiti and street art as it allows for the capturing of artwork that is often ephemeral. Indeed, contemporary street art is more often encountered online than in its physical form on city walls. Combining walking and photo-sharing provides a real time window into our ways of seeing street art and graffiti – a multimedia conversation that may well continue, long after the physical walk has finished.

The walk will start and end at Turnpike Lane Underground Station.

Please note:
We recommend participants have a mobile phone capable of photography and an Instagram account in order to fully engage with the on and offline discussion.

The walk is led by two Middlesex University academics with research interests in street art and graffiti.

Susan Hansen
Susan Hansen is Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Chair of the Forensic Psychology Research Group at Middlesex University.

For more, see http://mdxminds.com/2016/01/26/bowie-lands-on-wall-where-a-banksy-was/

Magali Peyrefitte

Magali Peyrefitte is Lecturer in Sociology at Middlesex University teaching and researching in urban sociology.