When the world is asleep, street artists—masked and cloaked—are awake. Quick on their feet, they install their work in the streets of the metro, once in a while checking for antagonist presence that polices their art. When the sun rises, people wake up to the spray-painted walls echoing the means to cure society’s ills. 

It is questionable that Bonifacio Global City (BGC) teased an exhibit featuring British street artist Banksy in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its now-deleted Facebook post. Banksy, given what his art stands for, does not identify with art institutions that dictate the path that art takes. Banksy’s main point of contact, the Pest Control Office, stated on their website that they do not associate with outside exhibits featuring the artist.

Worse, BGC added that street art in the area should be approved beforehand, which bypasses its long history and purpose. Doing so defeats its progressive and subversive nature when institutions appropriate street art culture to suit their palates. Regulated street art, therefore, contradicts its free-for-all and empowering nature.

Passing the Spray Paint

Like Banksy, Filipino street artists use street art—particularly graffiti, which refers to writings or drawings scribbled on a surface—as a means of activism and resistance. During the Diliman Commune, workers and students spray-painted messages such as “Marcos, Hitler, Diktador, Tuta!” and “Mabuhay ang barikada,” inside UP buildings.

Some 50 years later, the same messages are still found written on the walls, showing the unchanging oppressive system of our society. Such can be seen on the street art of cultural national democratic mass organizations (NDMO) like Panday Sining. As one of the cultural groups that gloss through the cities with its street art depicting political and social realities, they occasionally hold “Graffiestas,” or graffiti fiestas, to penetrate the streets through art.

In 2019, however, former Manila mayor Isko Moreno declared the group “persona non grata” after spray-painting the phrases “Presyo, Ibaba! Sahod, Itaas!” and “US-China Layas!” along the walls of United Nations Avenue. The same objection is evident in UP Los Baños, when its University Planning and Maintenance Office described the campus’ graffiti-infused walls as “unfortunate acts.” 

Artists are no exception to former President Rodrigo Duterte’s regime. Two farmer-activists in Albay were killed by police while writing “Duterte, Ibagsak!” on a bridge last 2021. 

As the state has continuously shown, the brute answer to the people’s calls is always exemplified through violence. Yet, this did not dishearten artists and cultural groups. When state forces do not heed the pleas of the people and instead use bloodshed to silence them, artists permeate more spaces to louden their protests.

Space Invaders

The novelty of street art lies in its ability to communicate with the masses. The irony surrounding Banksy and the BGC controversy is a matter of power dynamics. As a financial business district, BGC can limit the spatial scope of street art. A fabricated micro-society like BGC creates an illusion of “urban civility and an open space of social communion,” according to Filipino architect Gerard Lico in “Greenbelt: New Urbanism meets Postmodern Disneyfication.” 

In reality, the developers subtly control who gets inside the city and what is allowed in the city. They purposely create a quixotic place that has no sight of poverty in its streets, only tall skyscrapers filled with exclusive and privatized services. Featuring Banksy in a place that is curated exclusively for the elite is antithetical to what street art is.

Worse, if they plan to enclose his works in a museum, the “street” in street art will be stripped of its meaning, philosopher Nicholas Alden Riggle states in "Street Art: Transfiguration of the Commonplaces." Graffiti is a form of resistance of underground artists and the oppressed public to reclaim the public space that is rightfully theirs. The entrance of street art in an elite space only appropriates the art form without realizing its true aims.

Disturb the Comfortable

Street art has become a universal expression of resistance because of immense repression. Since the 1990s, Banksy has infiltrated public spaces with his anti-capitalist and anti-war art pieces. He intentionally uses the streets to catch the attention of the people to view his art which visualizes the taboo.

As a way of standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people against Israel’s settler colonialism, he created graffiti on the West Bank wall, a symbol of Israeli apartheid. Banksy used man-made barriers, such as the “Flying Balloon Girl” in 2005 which represents the Palestinian children longing for freedom. Nearly 20 years later, the situation in Palestine has vastly worsened, and yet Palestinian artists continue to color their walls as a symbolic depiction of their collective struggle.  

Similar to the practice of street art in other countries, the NDMOs practice “Oplan Pinta Oplan Dikit" where they paint walls and paste posters highlighting the calls of different sectors. It was a way for residents of Sitio San Roque, who painted murals and wrote graffiti with calls, to oppose the impending demolition during the Duterte administration. 

Street art belongs to the public and is for the public. This includes everyone even those who roam in elite spaces, as they too must be made aware and be part of the people’s struggles. Artists must continuously challenge the notion in art production that only moneyed and powerful institutions can set the space where art must be placed. No matter how many times the powerful few can erase and repaint the walls, artists will return to the streets with the same unyielding spirit—may it be graffiti on the walls or standing with the people. ●