{"id":713,"date":"2016-04-29T18:46:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-29T22:46:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/?p=713"},"modified":"2016-05-03T11:18:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T15:18:40","slug":"tattooed-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2016\/04\/29\/tattooed-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Tattooed City"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Questioning the\u00a0impact of the Richmond Mural Project on Richmond, Virginia\u2019s cultural identity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A piece of street art resembles a tattoo. An intricate web of color permanently etched onto a building until it starts to naturally fade away or until it is forcibly removed. Until then, the art sticks out on the smooth facade of the city. Grabbing your attention in such a manner that you can&#8217;t look away. The image is so striking that it is all you can remember about that place.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 741px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.etamcru.com\/pub\/thumbs\/moonshine-jpg-1600-900.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"731\" height=\"900\" \/><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">2013 Mural by Etam Cur titled &#8216;Moonshine&#8217;. Source: Richmond Mural Project<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Thanks in part to the Richmond Mural Project (RMP), Richmond, Virginia is covered in street art. From head to toe, the city is infused with awe-inspiring murals of amazing technical skill. They are as beautiful as they are creepy, nostalgic, and thought-provoking. The murals bring together many different perspectives and views that are now semi-permanently a part of Richmond\u2019s culture.<\/p>\n<p>But art is as personal as it is cultural. It is a representation of the artist\u2019s thoughts, feelings, and experiences. And it is impossible to say that the place in which an artist lives and breathes does not impact their work. That\u2019s why I was intrigued to see where the artists painting the city of Richmond actually come from.<\/p>\n<p>Are they from the area?<\/p>\n<p>Do they know the complicated history surrounding the city?<\/p>\n<p>They are cementing their name and work into the culture of Richmond, but do they even know what the city\u2019s culture is?<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about this, I created a map showing where the artists of the Richmond Mural Project actually come from. It is a diverse group of artists coming from places as far away as Singapore and Australia and as close as Washington DC. Out of the 38 artists who have participated, only fourteen are from the United States, \u00a0nine are from the East Coast, and only one is from Richmond.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/beaumontsmith.cartodb.com\/viz\/26eb8876-0e2b-11e6-8b83-0ef24382571b\/embed_map\" width=\"100%\" height=\"520\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>But what does this mean for the historical city? A city known for it\u2019s southern heritage, racial tensions, craft brews, and river culture. Do murals such as <a href=\"http:\/\/streetartnyc.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/31\/speaking-to-polands-natalia-rak-in-new-york-city\/\" target=\"_blank\">Natalia Rak<\/a>\u2019s \u201cLet there be light?\u201d and\/or Chazme and Sepes\u2019s \u201cCrash Dummies\u201d represent an authentic Richmond culture?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_672\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/13115381_10154042222771878_1122645974_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-672\" class=\"wp-image-672 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/13115381_10154042222771878_1122645974_n.jpg\" alt=\"Polish artist, Natalia Rak\u2019s \u201cLet there be light?\u201d painted on the side of Sidewalk Cafe in the Fan. Source: Beaumont Smith\" width=\"960\" height=\"601\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/13115381_10154042222771878_1122645974_n.jpg 960w, https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/13115381_10154042222771878_1122645974_n-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-672\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Polish artist, Natalia Rak\u2019s \u201cLet there be light?\u201d painted on the side of Sidewalk Cafe in the Fan.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Does it even matter?<\/p>\n<p>New Jersey native, Dave Ricculli doesn\u2019t think so. \u201cI don\u2019t think non-local artists detract from the [street art] because it still brings people together to celebrate the city of Richmond. RVA is so diverse anyways and people coming from everywhere to create art is still a great accomplishment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While Dave is right, it is an impressive feat, I still wonder about the consequences. \u00a0Like a tattoo, these public artworks are pricked into the skin of the city, and whether\u00a0intended or not the city will be judged by them for years to come.<\/p>\n<p><em>By: Beaumont Smith<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Questioning the\u00a0impact of the Richmond Mural Project on Richmond, Virginia\u2019s cultural identity. A piece of street art resembles a tattoo. An intricate web of color permanently etched onto a building until it starts to naturally fade away or until it is forcibly removed. Until then, the art sticks out on the smooth facade of the <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/2016\/04\/29\/tattooed-city\/\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"sr-only\">Read more about Tattooed City<\/span>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2067,"featured_media":709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53769],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-project-artva"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/files\/2016\/04\/RMP-Artist-maps.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7o53H-bv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2067"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/walkingrichmond\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}