Art builds the city BostonArte que faz a cidade (original) (raw)

Three anthropologists visited community murals in Boston, concentrating on the black and Latino neighborhoods of Roxbury, and Dorchester. With common interest in the ethnographic perspective, they moved toward a joint reflection on local murals. Our encounter with these murals drew on our previous ethnographic experience with festivals and neighborhood representation in Lisbon (GIC), with graffiti and street sports in Lisbon, New York, and Rio de Janeiro (LF), and with architecture, music, and urban planning in Lisbon and Boston (TS). We thus report on our resulting work in progress on a particular form of urban visual culture, community murals, that document, mediate, and represent local urban histories, places, and identities. These public works of art offer commentary on related dynamics of collective organization, of residential, economic, and ethnic segregation in the urban setting, inter-ethnic and inter-generational relations, and the role of youth in cultural continuity and ...