Paper short abstract:

Considering Scottish examples of street art from the past decade, including from the Scottish Independence Referendum, the pandemic, and the war in Ukraine, this paper will examine how street art can be a means of coping with uncertainty for creators, viewers, and, indeed, ethnographers.

Paper long abstract:

Street art, in its widest sense, is often the earliest publicly visible response to moments of uncertainty in everyday life. It uses and transforms existing spatial structures, highlighting society’s uncertainties, and often offering some kind of certainty in response. Though street art can be associated with the concept of resistance (Fransberg et al., 2021), in many cases the concept of ‘coping’ may be an equally apposite term to use. Indeed, some members of urban communities – not just street artists – may use street art, in its hybrid physical/digital forms, as a means of coping with isolation, anxiety, and the uncertainty brought about by near-daily changes to the status quo. Conversely, street art may contain ambiguity in its semiotic contents, adding to the uncertainty of urban spatial contexts. In this way, some passers-by may find solace in the very presence of street art, while others may become participants in the layering of meanings through its alteration and modification. After briefly defining the contested term street art for use within the disciplinary contexts of Ethnology and Folklore, this paper will consider the concepts of uncertainty, resistance, and coping, and through examples from across Scotland, examine creative street art responses to independence, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, trans rights activism, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.