Public View ~ archiving toilet graffiti

projects

Public View was a research project and interactive installation piece exploring the sociology of toilet writing/ 'graffiti' or 'latrinalia' and its removal in a higher education institution in 2017. The piece was exhibited as part of Slippages, an exhibition co-curated by the Feminist Methods Masterclass at Goldsmiths, University of London. You can read the concept paper and fieldnotes that emerged from this project in our b(l)og.

This project aspires to be an online archive of toilet writing shared from around the world. In capturing these writings, or smudges where writings once were, we hope to surface conversations and voices which emerge on the boundaries between 'private' and 'public', often on the margins of institutions, interrupting the ubiquity of white sanitised walls, and all they have come to symbolise. The archive perhaps allows us to glimpse the ways in which what is underneath haunts the surface and vice versa.

If you would like to add your toilet graffiti photos from other spaces/institutions to the public view archive below, please send them as a jpeg to hari@compost-mentis.com

black writing on white wall reads: "Rule #1: get paid !!!!!!"
poster for slippages + Water matters exhibition, 15th - 17th June 2017. Details artists and panelists, with stick figure people slipping on wet floor below.
Hari pops out sideways behind a blue accessible toilet door, smiling at a patch where graffiti has been painted over with thick white paint strokes
black writing on white wall reads: sexnotgender.com
"it's so fucking obvious" etched into pale blue / white surface
large graffiti tag reads ..... Frank?
graffiti on yellow door. purple pen reads "fuck Corbyn" has been amended to read "I fucking love Corbyn"
black writing on white wall reads: kil....
smudged out blue writing
large tag depicting a crown
tag, featuring a heart
biro on white wall reads "chattyman", + drawing of penis emerging from someone's head
silver graffiti tag
"what is status?" etched on pinkish/purple wall
faded writing reads "library is for nerdz, lame nerdz"
snowman + snowdog tag
snowman + snowdog tag
"snowman + snowdog" tag, mostly removed
snowman + snowdog tag
large tag over accessible toilet reads: "....Frank"
smudged pink writing on white wall
black writing on white wall reads: "Get well soon IRP"
"happy birthday worm" etched on green surface