PHOTOS: Mapping Urban Art in Buenos Aires and Beyond · Global Voices
Laura Schneider

What perhaps started as a fad or hobby is now an expression of art that is regularly seen in the streets and walls of cities worldwide.
Argentines Alejandro Güerri, Fernando Aíta and Tomy Lucadamo invite us to look, share, explore and build through their blog Escritosenlacalle [es] (Writings on the street):
Mirar la ciudad con otros ojos, pensar y charlar sobre lo que nos dicen las paredes.
Compartir fotos de graffiti, ubicarlos en un mapa, trazar relaciones.
Recorrer el paisaje urbano prestando atención a lo que las personas
escriben y pintan en los espacios comunes.
Construir un archivo visual, lingüístico, de tipografías, de las ideas y
sentimientos que se expresan en la calle.
See the city through different eyes, think and talk about what the walls tell us.
Share photos of graffiti, place them on a map, draw relationships.
Browse the cityscape by paying attention to what people write and paint in common areas.
Build a visual and linguistic archive, with fonts, ideas and
sentiments expressed on the street.
The GraFiTi project allows artists – or any citizen – to send photos of graffiti and map them [es] to see where the graffiti is located.
The project started collecting graffiti from Buenos Aires, but now you can also see photos of urban art in other Argentine cities like Neuquén, Córdoba or Rosario. You can even find photos of graffiti from cities in other countries, like Santiago (Chile), Santa Cruz (Bolivia), and Montevideo (Uruguay).
Alejandra Inzunza writes about the project in Yoroboku [es]:
En 2010, tres colegas argentinos (Alejandro Güerri, Fernando Aíta y Tomy Lucadamo) montaron una página web para registrar todos los grafitis interesantes que había en las paredes. Empezaron por fotografiarlos y publicarlos en Escritosenlacalle para construir un archivo visual y lingüístico de tipografías, ideas y sentimientos expresados en la calle.
Desde entonces, el proyecto no para de crecer. Los lectores envían por mail escritos que se encuentran en los muros y dejan su dirección exacta para construir un mapa digital del grafiti y la poesía que se esconde en él.
In 2010, three colleagues from Argentina (Alejandro Güerri, Fernando Aíta and Tomy Lucadamo) set up a website to collect all interesting graffiti on walls [across the city]. They began by photographing the graffiti and posting it on Escritosenlacalle to build a visual and linguistic archive of fonts, ideas and feelings expressed on the street.
Since then, the project has not stopped growing. Readers send writings found on walls by email with the exact address to build a digital map of graffiti and the poetry behind it.
The blog [es] divides users’ images by categories
Under the category “Delirios” [es] (delirium) we can find images like this one:
Chacarita, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo sent by Alejandro Guerri.
This is a graffiti under the category “Preguntas” [es] (questions):
“Why?” Graffiti in Venezuela 2000, San Cristóbal, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Photo sent by Fernando Aita
As you might expect from an Argentina blog, there's also a category called fútbol [es] (football):
Graffiti in Av. Belgrano 1550, Avellaneda, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Photo sent by Fernando Aita
Balvanera 300, Old Terminal, Salta, Argentina. Photo sent by anonymous user.
The project has received support from several entities, like the ‘2009 National Scholarship For Group Projects’ from Argentina's National Endowment of the Arts, and the ‘Grant for Creators in Letters and Thought’ from the Metropolitan Fund for Culture, Arts and Sciences of the city of Buenos Aires.
Av. Montes de Oca 6, Barracas, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo shared by GRaFiTi
Dorrego 1800, Colegiales, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Photo sent by Leandro Giovinazzi
Sargento Cabral 300, Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina.
Photo shared by GRaFiTi
You can send your photos of urban art by clicking on ‘Mandar graffiti‘ [es] (send graffiti).
You can also follow the project through Facebook [es] Twitter [es], and Flickr [es].