Chandra Morrison

Chandra Morrison

Research

Chandra's doctoral thesis was entitled Saturated Cities: Graffiti Art in São Paulo and Santiago de Chile. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, the comparative study examines how Brazilian and Chilean graffiti writers/artists engage creatively with the city and wider society through their aesthetic interventions in urban space. Previously, Chandra has conducted research on street art in Buenos Aires, Argentina, writing her MPhil thesis on this subject; and she participated in a research project studying the social impacts of drought in various regions of Brazil, undertaking fieldwork in Canindé, Ceará. Her primary research interests include urban art (particularly graffiti and street art), youth (sub)cultures, and transformations of urban space in contemporary Latin American cities.

Publications

  • Forthcoming. “Visibilidad aterradora: el graffiti y la juventud ‘violenta’ en São Paulo, Brasil” in Carles Feixa and Patricia Oliart (eds), Barcelona: Editorial Gedisa.
  • 2013. “Colouring Pollution: ‘Cleaning’ the City and ‘Recycling’ Social Values in São Paulo Street Art” in Geoffrey Kantaris and Rory O’Bryen (eds), Latin American Popular Culture: Politics, Media, Affect, London: Tamesis.
  • 2013. “Antônia” (film review) in Natália Pinazza and Louis Bayman (eds), Directory of World Cinema: Brazil, Bristol: Intellect.
  • 2011. “Monumento al Che: Participatory Memorial and the Construction of Collective Heritage” in Helmut Anheier, Yudhishthir Raj Isar, and Dacia Viejo-Rose (eds), Heritage, Memory and Identity (The Sage Cultures and Globalization Series, vol. 4), London: SAGE Publications.
  • 2010. “A seca, o semi-árido, e o pequeno agricultor em Canindé, Ceará” in Renzo Taddei and Ana Laura Gamboggi (eds), Depois que a chuva não veio: Respostas Sociais às secas no Nordeste, na Amazônia, e no Sul do Brasil, Fortaleza: FUNCEME/CIFAS. PDF available at: http://www.taddei.eco.ufrj.br/DQACNV.htm
  • 2007. “Re:Stencil (o, un cotidiano absurdo)” in Guido Indij, 1000 Stencils: Argentina Graffiti, Buenos Aires: La Marca Editora.

Selected Conference Papers

  • “Mirrored Revisions: Reflecting society and imagining belonging in South American graffiti art” (Arts and Belonging in the Americas Today, London, 2013)
  • “Painting Rebelution: Youth experience and shifting ‘ideologies’ in Chilean urban art” (Visualising Violence: Art, Memory and Dictatorship in Latin America, CRASSH/University of Cambridge, 2012)
  • “Meta-Graffiti: Self-referential imagery and depictions of graffiti culture in São Paulo and Santiago de Chile” (Invited Speaker, ‘Semana Cultural’ Research Symposium, University of Bristol, 2011)
  • “Graffiti and Hip Hop: Reflections on an urban cultural relationship in Brazil and Chile” (Department of Hispanic, Portuguese, and Latin American Studies, University of Bristol, 2010)
  • “Revisando a vinculação entre o graffiti e a cultura hip hop em Nova York, 1970-1985” (Invited Speaker, ‘Bienal de Graffiti Fine Art’ at Museu Brasileiro de Escultura (MuBE), São Paulo, Brazil, 2010)
  • “Representando lo ‘underground’: Imágenes de la juventud y lo marginal en el graffiti de São Paulo y Santiago de Chile” (Invited Speaker, Symposium on youth studies research, Newcastle University, 2010)
  • “Refiguring Public Monuments: Argentina’s Monumento al Che and Monumento a la Mujer Originaria” (SLAS Conference, Bristol, 2010)
  • “Urban (Re)Visions: Street Art and Spatial Appropriations in São Paulo” (LASA International Congress, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2009)

Teaching Experience

Chandra has taught seminars on the ‘Film and Visual Arts’ module for the CLAS MPhil in Latin American Studies, and has supervised undergraduate and Master’s theses for the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Department of Politics and International Studies respectively.  Additionally, she designed and ran a fieldwork training workshop for CLAS MPhil and first-year PhDs over a period of three years.

Other

She served as President of the UK organisation of Postgraduates in Latin American Studies (PILAS) from 2008-2010, and as Postgraduate Representative on the Society for Latin American Studies (SLAS) committee during this same period. Chandra also is a past recipient of the ‘Dwight Conquergood Award’ from Performance Studies international (PSi).