Ursula Frederick
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
In the contemporary world graffiti is often defined in terms of authority. It is the question of who does and doesn’t have the right to write in place that makes graffiti a contested and intriguing subject. Yet as archaeological work attests, graffiti practices of the past and present enfold a diverse suite of gestures and motivations. In this wider context, graffiti appears in the bush and in the streets, it is made in the domestic sphere and for public viewing, it is vernacular as well as being commissioned. Graffiti can involve considerable skill and be made with great love and respect, while at the same time it can appear ugly and destructive. How a particular society or community responds to graffiti is an equally engaging topic. In this paper I discuss the landscape of North Head Quarantine Station (Sydney, Australia) and the many phases and techniques of inscription activity that have taken place there. From the ‘prehistoric’ engravings of local Aboriginal people across a 150 year history of non-Indigenous mark-making this geography reveals how graffiti accumulates. Charting a variety of techniques, including stone and tree carving, Chinese calligraphy, and drawings in biro and pencil, I consider how an archaeological approach can work to appreciate a breadth of inscription activities while also acknowledging different contexts of production and reception. In doing so I argue that archaeological method and theory play an important role in reframing graffiti research to address its meaning and place-making potential.
