Geography Directions: East Side Gallery and the Contested Geographies of Graffiti
May 13, 2011 by Sarah Goggin
Filed under Geography in the News, Human Geography, World Regional Geography
From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline. Keep up with cutting edge academic geography. These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.
Following on from Fiona’s entry today (below) about a flâneur’s encounter with graffiti in Toulouse, I was struck by one of this week’s news stories [Guardian May 3, 2011 and May 4, 2011]. Tensions over the East Side Gallery – a series of graffiti based images on a particular stretch of the Berlin Wall – have triggered long-standing debates about the role of graffiti/public art in cities. The Gallery was originally created after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 to bring together (unpaid) artists from East and West Germany in a creative project. Controversially, a number of pieces have been whitewashed and overlaid with copied images in a recent renovation, described by one commentator as a “faked-up’ pastiche of itself…a Disneyesque, postmodern reconstruction of the art of the Wall designed to please tourists”. A number of the original artists are now suing the city council over issues of copyright and the reproduction of images without the artists’ permission.
These ethical and legal issues over the display and ownership of graffiti, in this case embroiled with political symbolism and significance, highlights a broader set of complex geographies that interweave ideas of creativity, art, public space, urbanism and place-making. In the context of this news story, McAuliffe and Iveson’s article in Geography Compass (see Fiona’s entry) also offers valuable insight into the tensions surrounding graffiti, which they describe as “a modern touchstone of urban discontent, a global popular culture phenomena that drives urban managers to distraction” (2011: 128). In providing a critical review of the literature, they aim to uncover the complexity of graffiti’s dynamic and contested geographies and explore the tensions surrounding public graffiti, which are so clearly demonstrated in the ongoing debates surrounding the East Side Gallery.
By Sarah Mills
To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.
Concept Caching: European Imprints on the Streets of Mumbai, India
September 4, 2010 by Sarah Goggin
Filed under Human Geography, World Regional Geography
From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography. Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region. Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.
"More than a half-century after the end of British rule, the centers of India's great cities continue to be dominated by the Victorian-Gothic buildings the colonizers constructed here. Here is evidence of a previous era of globalization, when European imprints transformed urban landscapes. Walking the streets of Mumbai (the British called it Bombay) you can turn a corner and be forgiven for mistaking the scene for London, double-deckered buses and all. One of the British planners' major achievements was the construction of a nationwide railroad system, and railway stations were given great prominence in the urban architecture. I had walked up Naoroji Road, having learned to dodge the wild traffic around the circles in the Fort area, and watched the throngs passing through Victoria Station. Inside, the facility is badly worn, but the trains continue to run, bulging with passengers hanging out of doors and windows." (c)H. J. de Blij.
This image submitted by Harm de Blij offers a visual complement to the descriptions of Indian economic, political, and socio-cultural landscapes that have been shaped by the period of British rule. As discussed in the post Geography Directions: The British Impact on Indian Geography the impact of the British Raj was tremendous and persists in many of the urban landscapes of modern India.
Geography Directions: The British Impact on Indian Geography
September 4, 2010 by Sarah Goggin
Filed under Human Geography, World Regional Geography
From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline. Keep up with cutting edge academic geography. These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.
This past week, the Prime Minister completed an official visit to India, leading a large entourage of government, business, sport, academic, artistic, and cultural leaders. The visit to India was intended to strengthen long-standing bilateral ties between the two nations. By opening a new chapter in an intimate, if often tense relationship, Mr Cameron stressed the economic and cultural benefits that India and the United Kingdom share – a common language, government organization, social priorities, and investment in key industries. In an editorial for The Hindu, Mr Cameron summarized his position by stating that, “I know that Britain cannot rely on sentiment and shared history for a place in India’s future. Your country has the whole world beating a path to its door. But I believe Britain should be India’s partner of choice in the years ahead”.
Indeed, India of the twenty-first century is prime real-estate for global investment. With well over one billion constituents, a burgeoning economy, and a fledgling middle class, India is poised to become a global player. Why might Britain enjoy an advantage over other global powers in competing for Indian business? The answer may lie in geography.
From a human geographical perspective, the contemporary Indian Diaspora in Britain is tremendously important, providing lucrative commercial, social and creative models that have permanently altered the British cultural landscape. This immigration influx was reactionary in nature, a post-colonial response to eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century British rule of the Indian subcontinent. The geographical impact of the British Raj was immense. In a century, India was transformed from a vast agricultural region, separated by dozens of feuding kingdoms, into a prized economic asset – ‘the Jewel of the British Crown’. As early as the 1770s the East India Company commenced cartographic surveys of India, Pakistan, and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). Reorganized under the Ordnance Survey Office, the Survey of India created a distinctive urban infrastructure, facilitated the development of the world’s most extensive railway network, and led to more efficient agricultural production and output. The developments of the India Survey were closely followed by the British public; an 1898 issue of The Geographical Journal complained that the annual issue of the Survey of India Report (12[6]: 606-607) had been inexplicably delayed, angering investors and observers alike. In 2007 The Geographical Journal reviewed an excellent treatise on the subject. Entitled Colonial and Post-Colonial Geographies of India (Saraswati Raju, M Satish Kumar and Stuart Corbridge, eds.), this text successfully analysed changing Indian geography through Western and Indian eyes. Owing to the Royal Geographical Society’s long association with Indian exploration and cartography, the Society’s journals provide ample discourse of Indian-British narratives, including Miles Ogborn’s “Writing Travels,” and Alison Blunt’s “Imperial Geographies of Home”.
By Benjamin Sacks
To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.
