Dessiner pour agir : graphisme et politique dans l’espace public

Abstract

The article explores the relationship between graphics and politics in contemporary public space from a particularly significant event: the production of posters and graphic artifacts following the attack at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, in January 2015 in Paris. Using the technique of screen-printing, popularized in May 1968, at the beginning of 2015 students of all art academies in the French capital were mobilized to express their outrage over the incident and to defend freedom of expression by graphic creation. More than the symbolism of the images, the article focuses on the "graphic actions" (the power of the image to mobilize) that are activated in a situation of political and social emergency. Starting from an ethnography analysis of series of workshops on graphic creation, initiated following the attacks of January 2015, the text seeks to retrace the origins of the alliance between graphics and politics, embodied in the sixties in France by the collective "Grapus" and the international productions of political murals. Posters, stencils, stickers and murals, are considered as alternatives of "writing actions" infiltrating the urban space, they form a unique network of social relations, which thanks to their agency, allow us to rethink the construction of public opinion.