Graffiti Wall Project

For my graffiti wall, I wanted to explore how war affects an individual in civilian society, specifically from an American cultural standpoint. On a daily basis, we are inundated with many conflicting ideas from the media, from churches, from schools -- and those ideas all trickle down into society and affect us on a personal level. One conflicting message that I focused on is this: we must love one another, but not love those on the other side of war, because those are our “enemies.” Long Way Gone was definitely on my mind while exploring this message: Ishmael’s “enemies,” the Rebels, were just young boys like himself, all victims of war.

I wanted to display this conflict in human nature, to display the various voices an individual will hear, and to ask how we ourselves can find a voice among all that noise. To depict these conflicting messages, I chose to use raindrops, colored red to symbolize blood, because the messages we hear as a culture are constantly falling on us. I remember we were sitting in class one day and discussing why we often don’t hear about some of these atrocities going on in the world, and we discussed how we don’t want to hear the bad stuff, or we hear it and ignore it, moving on with our day. Our lives of privilege allow us to feel a moment of sympathy and then move on. Maybe I speak for myself, but I know that the bad news is out there, but I get so bogged down with daily life and so overwhelmed with massive amounts of information via the internet, that I start filtering it out. In my graffiti wall, I’m showing that the messages are there all around me, falling on me like rain.

The information that “rains” upon my head is, essentially, about the nature of humanity: that we, as humans, are capable of both love and hate in their purest forms. I want to love my neighbor, but can I love my neighbor if that neighbor has done something to hurt me? What if that neighbor is a terrorist? As humans, we preach love but then turn around and go to war and kill each other. On a smaller scale, we preach love but then talk behind other people’s backs or treat others with disdain. My graffiti wall shows all these messages of love and hate falling on my head.

I often feel voiceless and hopeless when I learn about the atrocities that have happened in history, and that are still happening today. What can I possibly do to make a difference? What can I say that hasn’t been said before? I used a self-portrait for this project for a reason: this is a personal struggle for me, especially after what I’ve learned in this class. What I’ve learned is that I have been standing still, absorbing all this information from my culture, and my mouth is covered. I never do anything with what I’ve heard. I have no reaction other than brief sympathy. Instead, I absorb all this news about the wars and genocides, but I then step outside and go about my day as though nothing has happened. Am I listening? Yes, I am listening. But who am I listening to? Which message do I choose to follow? What if I listened to the humans behind the headlines, like I did in this class? And what if I did that more often? Would I do something then?

I included Elie Wiesel’s quote, “For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.” Wiesel is a survivor of Auschwitz concentration camp in WWII, and this quote comes from his speech in 1993 at the dedication ceremonies for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. We have to listen to the stories of people behind the wars. We have to remember those who have died and those who have suffered.

I am just one girl in a small corner of the world. But I am listening.