Picture by Felicia S. - Stencil by Arte Jaguar crew

Picture by Felicia S. - Stencil by Arte Jaguar crew

Picture by Felicia S. - Stencil by Arte Jaguar crew

Picture by Felicia S. - Stencil by MCO

Yesterday I received those four pictures with the sole indication that they were taken in the streets of Oaxaca, a city located in the southern part of Mexico. I immediately felt I should do something with them. But didn’t know where to start from as I don’t have any knowledge about Mexico and even less about Mexican street art.

After some researches, I found this really interesting article published by the Los Angeles Times about a print exhibition entitled “The Ink Shouts”: “Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca has two dominant character traits. It’s a hub of artistic creativity… And it’s a hotbed of political discontent, a long-oppressed region whose heavily indigenous population chafes under crushing poverty, ethnic discrimination and autocratic political rule…”

Being an outsider, I’m not gonna try to get into an analysis of the political situation but apparently most Oaxacans do not speak Spanish which is leading to problems in participating in the Spanish-speaking educational system. In 2006, a teachers’ strike turned into riots and during that period the walls of the city were used as “visual newspapers”.

Here are some pictures taken in Oaxaca and sent to our Flickr pool, hope we’ll see more of them in the coming days because now I just want to know even more about this city, it’s inhabitants and artistic scene …

“Oaxaca street art” by johanna

“Oaxaca street art” by johanna

“MexicoDSC00956″ by markstravelphotos

More about Oaxaca on wikipedia: city - state - protests

Thanks to Felicia for introducing me (us?) to Mexican street art.