Rådjur och raketer: Gatukonst som estetisk produktion och kreativ praktik i det offentliga rummet

The purpose of this thesis is to describe and analyse the visual expressions of Street Art that occurs in the public space, and by doing so, to study this specifi c practice, and also elucidate the relation between public space as a democratic idea, a place for freedom of speech and as a planned, aesthetically shaped place. The intention is to throw light upon a central part of many young peoples lives in a didactic aspect. In this thesis I discuss Street Art as an informal image making in public space that young people use as tools to make meaning, but also as a form of resistance. The methodologies used in the study are ethnography and visual ethnography, where observational studies of Street Art as practice, interviews and interpretation of photographs (my own, and my informants) are performed and analysed. Theoretically, the study has a didactic and semiotic approach but I also rely on Cultural Studies as a research fi eld in order to be able to pick up different kinds of theories. From three platforms; public space and public place and places for Street Art, aesthetic learning processes within this specifi c practice, and fi nally the expanded fi eld of Art and the similarities and differences between formal Art and Street Art I have outlined four themes; ephemerality, the criteria for Street Art practice, how the work is being done, as a collective and individual practice, the struggle of space in public space, and fi nally high and low in Art and culture. By describing and analysing this informal image making light is thrown upon the aesthetic learning process that occurs, the didactic aspect of this practice and the communication that the images articulate. As a result, the study shows that Street Art, in spite of its illegal mark, points out that it is an aesthetic production and a creative practice that consists of resistance, meaning making, achieving knowledge through practice, and above all a way to use the city, to become a part of the city. The thesis contributes with the suggestion that this informal aesthetic learning process is a way to form identity, make meaning, take part of public space, and through symbolic resistance demand ones rights of expression.