University of St. Thomas professors Todd Lawrence (English) and Heather Shirey (art history) spoke to MPR News about their ongoing efforts through the Urban Art Mapping project to preserve the art that emerged in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing.
From the story:
Todd Lawrence is wedged between a taco truck and a brick wall in Minneapolis.
He pats an electrical box across the alley from the Third Precinct police station that burned in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd.
“This is a super active spot for people to put up stickers – lots of anti-police stickers, anti-Trump stickers, protest stickers,” he says. “We pay close attention to stickers. They’re the kind of things that people just sort of pass and don’t pay much attention to, but we think they’re just as important as murals.”
Lawrence is an associate professor of cultural studies at the University of St. Thomas. On this June afternoon, he’s with Heather Shirey, a professor of art history at St. Thomas. They’ve been documenting street art in the Twin Cities since 2018. ...
In 2018, Lawrence and Shirey co-founded the Urban Art Mapping project at St. Thomas, an interdisciplinary research team that they co-direct with Paul Lorah, an associate professor of geography.
With student researchers, the project “seeks to document, analyze and archive street art responding to moments of friction and crisis” to better understand how art shapes and is shaped by place.
This includes everything from unauthorized stickers, wheatpaste posters and graffiti to large-scale murals sanctioned by cities.
