Writings on the Wall: An Investigation into Young Graffiti Writers’ Motivations, Meanings, and Strategies for Creation in Hanoi, Vietnam

Graffiti has become an omnipresent feature of urban landscapes, with these sprawling words and images on public and private surfaces serving as an entry point for an investigation into the relationship between space, aesthetics, and politics. So far, there has been little academic research conducted on street art in the Asian context, and no literature on the burgeoning street art scene in Vietnam. However, the effects that globalization and modernization have had on the region, and the tactics citizens employ to negotiate state-imposed censorship and restraints, have been studied, positioning this focus within a broader area of study. As such, the main objective of this thesis is to explore the motivations behind the creation of graffiti and street art in order to determine how youth (17-30) identities are constructed and spaces are contested in the postsocialist liminal space of Hanoi, Vietnam.