Paper short abstract:

Graffiti forces viewers to reimagine and reframe spaces. The slogan ‘no one is illegal on stolen land’ reframes both former colony spaces and former metropole spaces through its unexpectedness. This slogan is imposed on photographs and objects to highlight colonial legacies and post-coloniality.

Paper long abstract:

Graffiti is “art out of place” the same way Mary Douglas tells us that “dirt is matter out of place.” Unexpected graffiti is often jarring and its incongruous presence highlights counternarratives that force viewers to reframe the where spaces they find it.

The slogan “no one is illegal on stolen land” came to the forefront of the political debates in 2018 in the USA over the Differed Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, two laws which guaranteed the rights, especially to education, of undocumented residents who arrived as minors. This slogan extends beyond this context – it drips with colonialism and post-coloniality, encompassing generations of land grabs, dehumanisation, and state-imposed disenfranchisement and violence.

I digitally imposed the slogan on photos from my travels around former colonies to underscore the impact of colonialism on those places, both historically and currently. The imposed phrase reframes the image, forcing the viewer to think about colonialism’s long reach. But colonialism’s impacts were and are felt in the metropoles as well. I took my slogan out into the real world of London, both out and about and into the British Museum, one of the most potent spaces of colonial legacy and post-coloniality. In the museum, I sought artifacts to match with my travels, and placed a homemade sign on or near them to reframe. I walked around London, finding the little legacies of colonialism that make our city, and placed my sign slogan there as well.