Malin Fransberg, Postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Youth Research Society, and Nadezhda Vasileva, PhD candidate at the University of Tampere, have published a research article on the creative ways graffiti writers and sticker artists interpret urban space as subcultural places. The article explores the practice of a distinct ‘gaze’ present in creative urban youth subcultures. It focuses on sticker artists in St. Petersburg and graffiti writers in Helsinki while exploring how this subcultural gaze is formed and enacted among subcultural youth in different socio-political contexts.
The idea of this article emerged when the researchers noticed how they have learned through their case studies different subcultural ways of looking at ‘spots’ in urban space. The article highlights how graffiti writers and sticker artists challenge different types of urban control on the streets of St Petersburg and Helsinki.
The methodological article is a complimentary study in authors’ doctoral research on young people engaged in urban creativity. Fransberg and Vasileva’s article is also a continuation of the Finnish Youth Research Society’s completed research project Youth in the Media City – Urban ethnographic openings in the streets and stations of Helsinki and St. Petersburg (2016-2018).
The article can be read freely online:
Fransberg, M., Vasileva, N. (2024) Practicing Subcultural Gaze: Sticker Artists and Graffiti Writers Navigating Between Recognition and Control in Urban Spaces (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.). International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-024-00165-1 (Visit an external site. The link opens in a new tab.).
Photo: Unsplash.