When I was living in a small remote village in northern Portugal in the 1980s, the urgent ringing of the church bell could mean only one thing: someone’s house or barn was on fire.
With the closest volunteer fire department more than 25 kilometres away, it was up to the villagers to extinguish or contain the blaze as best as they could. So they would arrive at the church, armed with an assortment of shovels, axes and buckets. Having been told where to go, people ran to the site as the church bell would continue ringing so that even those who were kilometres away could spring into action.
Being 11 years old at the time – and having lived the previous 10 years of my life in the United States – I wondered why someone wasn’t just picking up a phone and letting folks know where to go. That may have only gotten so much traction with that, as there were only four phones in the entire village. But most could hear that very distinct church bell.
I was reminded of this childhood memory when I began seeing public information on keeping safe from COVID-19 flooding every media platform available.
Not everyone has access to a radio, TV or a computer. According to the United Nations, about 46 per cent of the world’s population don’t have access to what has been declared a human right – the internet. This lack of access is a problem in Canada, too. We’ve seen this as school boards across the country have been working hard to provide the technology students need to take their schooling online.
This becomes especially important once we realize how a lack of online connectivity affects the flow of information – not to mention literacy.
I’ve been studying street art, both legal and illegal, as tools for teaching and learning for a number of years. The research I’ve done in this area has shown me that this art form has the potential to educate people on a wide variety of issues. Seen as a tool to beautify a neighbourhood – or sometimes just an annoyance – street art is much more than that.
Now it has popped up as a new platform to educate people on how to protect themselves from COVID-19.
On walls all around the world, instructions to “wash your hands” “stay home” and “keep six feet apart” are amplifying the message and plugging informational gaps the official announcements aren’t covering.
For example, a mural in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside by street artist Smokey D, with text by community advocate Karen Ward, is passing along crucial health information in an underprivileged urban area that struggles with homelessness and poverty. Bypassing the need for media, the street art reinforces to those who see it to take the virus seriously.
In India, public awareness on COVID-19 is crossing gender lines in the form of a huge piece painted in front of a police station in the city of Chennai. The street art, created by a team of trans women, offers a colourful interpretation of the novel coronavirus with several sentences offering advice on how to stay safe written in Tamil, one of the local languages.
Ensuring that street art can communicate vital information to communities with low literacy is especially important.
In Dakar, Senegal, members of a graffiti artist collective created murals to highlight the importance of wearing a face mask, and although words are part of the colourful piece, even those who can’t read are able to understand the message.
And understanding who the audience is for COVID-19 street art makes it more likely the information will get across. In Bristol, England, two street artists collaborated on a piece in a skatepark that sees the Nintendo character Dr. Mario reminding skaters with “Now Wash Your Fu**ing Hands!”
Street art created with the intent to raise awareness on an issue could be considered a public service announcement. During a pandemic, it may end up saving a life.
@nowtoronto
