Appropriation: Graffiti (UK)

Abstract

Graffiti as a spatial and material practice linked to Hip Hop culture emerged in the early 1970s in the urban landscape of New York and Philadelphia. It developed as a response to the spatio-political context within which minority and marginal groups were dwelling, and has since been practiced globally by a multiplicity of people following the New York City graffiti pandemic of the mid-1970s to the late 1980s. Graffiti has evolved into various urban art forms and since the turn of the twenty-first century is commonly located under the broader discipline of “street art ”. This entry explains and uncovers vernacular graffiti as a lesser-known phenomenon in non-urban Britain by UK-based graffiti writers.