Negative curation and contested claims over the public visual landscape

This paper explores the graffiti and street art produced during the 2017 postal plebiscite for same sex marriage in Australia, including activists’ creative visual responses to the hate speech that proliferated in urban and suburban areas during this highly charged period. The paper has a particular focus on the wholesale erasure of street art and graffiti bearing political messages in support of, or against, marriage equality. Communities increasingly exert stewardship over the public visual landscape, and may engage directly in buffing graffiti or street art deemed offensive, or defending and restoring work deemed valuable. This analysis draws on repeat photography and video materials showing a series of attempted erasures of pro-same sex marriage murals by so called religious ‘activists.’ These materials show both the active challenges from passersby these erasures attracted, and the buffers’ defense of their actions, which affords a unique level of insight into the divisive social dialogue of this period.