Public Art and Urban Politics Research Project in San Francisco: gender issues and women’s participation in production, consumption and management of street art in San Francisco

As a part of my undergraduate Geography degree at King's College of London, I undertook a research study in San Francisco. My group's general topic was: To what extent can public art allow us to understand the contested politics of urban space?. While the focus of my individual project was gender issues and women’s participation in production, consumption and management of street art in The Mission District, San Francisco. It was an incredible experience through which I could explore my interest in art, urban politics and gender issues as well as gain universal skills of fieldwork, research, data collection and analysis. The results of my study came out to be very interesting and some unexpected. Briefly, women’s participation in San Francisco is very unique and plays a crucial role in its publicness production and geographies of interaction. I managed to gather diverse data leading to six main findings on complex gender politics of public art in the Golden City. 1. street art in the Mission is more multicultural and political than the government-manged public art; 2. there are many female artists working in the Mission making it an inclusive and participatory space; 3. their participation opposes male dominance in the artworld; 4. the women on the walls of the Mission are depicted as empowered, emancipated and leaders; 5. women’s voices on socio-political issues matter in the Mission District; 6. the Mission’s street art subverts Latino gender roles. Below you can see visual data I collected throughout my fieldwork in the alleys of the Mission District in San Francisco. For more information, feel free to message me on priv! x