Rebel Imaginings: Youth Street Art in Yogyakarta

This paper explores the dynamic interplay between street art, urban experience, and material culture, focusing on the practices of young artists in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Street art, as a form of creative expression, manifests rhizomatically across urban landscapes, transforming public spaces such as walls, buildings, and trains into sites of unexpected aesthetic encounters for urban dwellers. This study highlights the dual nature of street art as both a non-mediated and mediated visual phenomenon, shaped by culture, society and the affordances of the internet that provide new exhibition venues and broaden audience reach.

Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of Deleuze and Guattari, particularly the concepts of the minor and the rhizome, this paper critically examines how the artistic practices of Yogyakarta's street artists serve as vehicles for political expression and activism. Central to this analysis is the notion of "rebel imaginings," which encapsulates the visual and discursive forces that contribute to the materiality of political activism in street art. Through this lens, the study illuminates the multifaceted encounters and creative strategies employed by these artists, underscoring their role in shaping urban narratives and engaging with socio-political issues both on the streets and in digital spaces.

The research reveals how street art, once firmly rooted in physical urban environments, has become increasingly deterritorialized and reterritorialized in cyberspace, through platforms such as social media and online galleries. This shift intensifies the affective dimensions of street art, as practices of recording, uploading, and viewing art online augment its presence and significance within the urban realm.