Archive of Graffitti and Urban Expression in Seattle

Two graduate students from the University of Washington-Seattle have started Urban Archives, an online database of graffiti and other artwork and expression in public spaces (stencils, stickers, etc.) It's available through the University of Washington Digital Archives at http://content.lib.washington.edu/uaweb/index.html.

From the front page you'll have the options to review several types of graffiti, including glass graffiti, political graffiti, and hand styles (can someone point me toward a good definition of hand style? From context I'm gathering that it's a basic signature/tag for an artist?). Select an item and you'll get a plain set of thumbnails that shows the item and a brief description.

(This is urban graffiti, of course, so some of this stuff can (easily) be found offensive.)

Click on a picture and you'll get more information about the item, including address, date, photographer, where it was found, a slightly better description, etc.

You can visit this site just to get a sense of the graffiti and how public spaces are used for expressive purposes. But I would have liked to see a little more description of the items. For example, one of the items I saw in the database was an Andre the Giant sticker. It reminded me of the old "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" stickers, but there was no pointer to that or any other information. Just some more background, maybe some links to external stuff. Even without that, it's a fun visit, lots of interesting stuff to review.

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