Observing the world through invisible graffiti

When Amber Skye Beaulieu started her summer research project earlier this year, she thought her days would be spent reading, and if she wasn’t reading, she wasn’t working. Beaulieu, an undergraduate student in the Faculty of Arts, soon discovered that research is just as much thinking about ideas as it is about reading about them.

“A huge part of research is actually letting knowledge synthesize, reflecting on it and making new connections through observations in the world through the lens of your research,” she says. 

Cenovus PURE EDI fund provides support

Beaulieu’s research was supported by the Cenovus PURE EDI fund in the Program for Undergraduate Research Experiences (PURE) from the Office of Signature Learning Experiences. It’s one of several awards students can receive to participate in undergraduate research summer studentships.

“There is so much room for creativity in research and making observations about the world around you is the first step,” says Beaulieu.

“If I had known that, I would have applied for PURE sooner. I didn’t understand how I could participate in research as an arts student.”

Beaulieu spent much of her summer travelling around Canada observing invisible graffiti in the street, spurring new thoughts and ideas. Invisible graffiti, as Beaulieu defines in her project, are markings that are technically graffiti in the eyes of the law, but seldom recognized and enforced.

Her research, supervised by Dr. Nestar Russell, PhD, associate professor, and Dr. Ayesha Mian Akram, PhD, assistant professor (teaching)—both from the sociology department—investigated academic definitions of graffiti as compared to legal ones, pointing to the singular focus of academic studies on “hip-hop style” graffiti writing.

As part of the project, Beaulieu used her skills in web to create invisiblegraffiti.ca, an online forum for people to share and interact with photographs of invisible graffiti they find in the world. The forum acts as a permalink of photographic evidence with categories like small business graffiti and school graffiti.

Project illustrates real world impact of research

Beaulieu says the project changed the way she sees research.

“I never quite knew what a researcher does. I had written research papers for classes, but when it has the potential for real world impact, rather than a grade, it's easier to take a lot more seriously.”

Through analysis, Beaulieu, Russell and Akram found that many markings legally defined as graffiti aren’t recognized as such, bringing into question the social perceptions and legal enforcement of certain types of graffiti.

Beaulieu says it reminded her that an injustice somewhere is an injustice everywhere.

“Graffiti has been selectively enforced, and has to do with certain social biases, especially with socioeconomics, race, demographics, and even subcultural biases,” she says.

“When you have this discrepancy between written law and practiced law, you open up so much room for discrimination and inequity.”

For Beaulieu, who wants to pursue a masters degree and eventually go to law school, this research project reignited a passion for changing the world.

“It brought me back to a part of myself that I almost lost, or got very dampened. It taught me that there's still that little burning passion in me to make a difference.”