Gender, Diversity, and Identities in Street Art and Urban Public Visual Culture
Public space is simultaneously a stage, a medium, and a contested arena. It is where negotiations unfold over who may appear, who may speak, which bodies are rendered visible, and which narratives are recognized as legitimate. Street art—encompassing muralism, graffiti, stencil practices, paste-ups, sticker art, ephemeral interventions, and performative actions—constitutes one of the most immediate forms of contemporary visual culture through which such tensions are problematized. It produces situated and accessible images capable of catalyzing social debate without necessarily relying on institutional mediation.
In recent years, debates on gender, diversity, and identities have become increasingly central to the public sphere (media, education, and cultural policy), and street art has operated as a laboratory for visual languages and repertoires: from feminist and queer iconographies to narratives addressing migration, racialization, disability, ageism, and precarity. Yet this potential coexists with structural frictions: the invisibilization of women artists, unequal access to walls and festivals, the sexualization or delegitimization of the work of women and gender/sexual dissidents, selective erasures driven by moral and political controversy, commercial appropriations of “diverse” aesthetics, and persistent tensions between activism and the market.
This special issue proposes a comparative, methodologically plural examination of how street art and urban public visual culture represent, debate, and reconfigure identities. The focus is not limited to “topics” (e.g., murals about equality), but extends to conditions of production (who paints, with what resources, and within which circuits), visual forms (symbols, styles, rhetorical strategies), modes of circulation (social media, the press, cultural tourism), and social effects (conflict, public pedagogy, and the construction of neighborhood belonging).
The aim is to move the discussion beyond polarization by combining robust empirical work (urban case studies, interviews, systematic visual analysis, mapping approaches, and mixed methods) with theoretical contributions (intersectionality, queer studies, theories of public space, postcolonial/decolonial perspectives, and the sociology of art). Ultimately, the special issue seeks to provide a rigorous account of how the street produces visual culture about identities and how that visual culture, in turn, reorders community ties, collective memory, and public agendas.
Thematic axes
1. (In)visibility and Unequal Access: Who Paints, Who Decides, Who Signs**
This axis focuses on the structures that shape the presence of women and gender/sexual dissidents within street-art scenes. Rather than merely counting “gender-themed” works, it foregrounds questions of access and power: who obtains prominent walls, who is invited to festivals, how gatekeepers operate (curators, municipalities, brands, collectives), and which material and symbolic barriers persist (street safety, social networks, time, funding, and artistic legitimacy).
2. Feminist and Queer Iconographies: Symbols, Genealogies, and Visual Rhetorics**
Here the emphasis is on visual grammar: recurring motifs, color palettes, typographies, compositional strategies, slogans, humor, metaphors, and embodied representations, as well as how these elements engage with art-historical traditions and repertoires of protest. The axis invites attention to continuities (historical symbols) and innovations (memes, pop hybrids, and digital aesthetics translated onto walls).
3. Intersectionality on the Street: Race, Migration, Class, Territory, and Belonging**
This axis examines how gender and sexuality intersect with racialization, migration, social class, religion, language, age, disability, and other dimensions. The street is a site where belonging is negotiated (“who counts as local”), and street art may reinforce or challenge symbolic boundaries and hierarchies of inclusion.
4. Censorship, Erasure, and Controversy: Public Morality, Conflict, and the Politics of Space**
Street art is particularly vulnerable to intervention: municipal removals, vandalism, neighborhood pressure, partisan instrumentalization, or selective “clean-ups.” In matters of gender and diversity, these dynamics often intensify, as sexuality, non-normative bodies, and political claims can trigger controversy. This axis studies the social life of conflict: how removals are justified, who mobilizes support or backlash, the role of media and platforms, and the implications for freedom of expression and civic coexistence.
5. Bodies, Affect, and Care: Gender-Based Violence, Memory, and Symbolic Repair**
Beyond denunciation, street art can generate spaces of mourning, memory, and symbolic repair: commemorative murals, tributes to victims, prevention campaigns, and narratives centered on care. This axis explores how public imagery participates in collective emotional processes and forms of civic pedagogy.
6. Economy, Markets, and the “Branding” of Diversity: Between Activism and Co-optation**
Feminist/queer aesthetics and diversity discourses may be appropriated by brands, festivals, or city strategies. This axis examines tensions among authenticity, instrumentalization, and sustainability: when diversity becomes a label, what is gained and what is lost, and who benefits economically and institutionally.
7. Digital Mediation and Circulation: From Wall to Archive and Social-Media Debate**
Although the special issue is centered on the street, artworks increasingly live through their documentation: photography, reels, local press coverage, maps, hashtags, and archiving accounts. This axis analyzes how digital circulation reshapes readings of identity by fragmenting neighborhood contexts, amplifying controversies, and enabling translocal solidarities.
Indicative timeline
July 2026: Submission deadline
December 2026:Publication
Guest Editors / Coordinators
Dr. Belén Calderón Roca**, Universidad de Málaga
Dr. María Paula Gago**, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (Argentina)
Dr. Cristina Paredes Serrano**, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
