From the idle street corners of West Coconut Grove to the bustling Wynwood Walls, graffiti has woven itself into the tapestry of Miami’s culture. Some love it, believing it to be a vital artform; others see it as glorified vandalism. Increasingly, however, the city has come to celebrate its ability to act as a catalyst for social change, due in part to the efforts of art historians who have fought to keep the story of Miami’s graffiti alive. One such person is Allison Freidin ’03, an RE alum and the co-founder of the Museum of Graffiti, which opened in Wynwood in 2019. Another is Ms. Fabienne Rousseau, a new RE art teacher who worked as a program manager of Wynwood Walls.  

What is graffiti, and what distinguishes it from other forms of art? Freidin provides a straightforward definition: it’s “an art form predicated on the formation of the letter.” But the nature and power of graffiti in Miami is inextricable from its history, and that history is inextricable from the struggles that graffiti artists such as “Crook”, “Crome,” and “Atomik” have faced since the 1970s.  

In the ’70s, there was little to no education available to the public about graffiti, largely because it was illegal.  

“Even as a really young child, just being in the back seat of my parents car. I always thought that the random art on the walls in the West Coconut Grove area was kind of rebellious and colorful and extremely interesting to me,” Freidin said. But I had nowhere to learn about it. I always found it to be super interesting because I had no access to the artists and what was going on at such a young age and in such a sheltered environment.” 

During this period, artists began to use the abandoned and neglected walls in the Overtown and downtown Miami areas. Graffiti in Miami was also heavily influenced by the graffiti scenes in New York City and Philadelphia, with artists altering the styles of their work to resemble the work of their peers up north. 

This environment also impacted the art of Ms. Rousseau: “Growing up in Miami, specifically in the 80s, we were surrounded by graffiti and the hip hop movement in general. So that was a heavy influence on my artwork—that and the Caribbean influence because my family’s from Haiti.” 

Yet graffiti did not begin to line the walls of Wynwood until the early 2000s. Tony Goldman, a real estate developer, revitalized this neighborhood by commissioning artists such as Shepard Fairey and Kenny Scharf to paint large murals on the empty walls of warehouses and buildings. Now, Wynwood Walls is largely regarded as “an ever changing and evolving epicenter for the arts,” as Lily Namias ’25, vice president of the RE Art League, put it.  

But Wynwood Walls couldn’t have been established without the persistent, decades-long struggle of graffiti artists to express themselves without government and media repudiation.  

“There was a government narrative that was being fed to the media, which fueled a huge stigma associated with aerosol as a medium,” said Freidin. “So, I think graffiti artists and aerosol artists have a much higher barrier to overcome when trying to get into like blue chip galleries or [a] mainstream museum. The Museum of Graffiti is debunking a lot of these myths and doing tremendous work to correct longstanding biases towards graffiti writers.” 

Some opponents of graffiti hold the view that it doesn’t measure up to other artforms. “Graffiti doesn’t require the same level of artistic ability and symbolism as regular art does,” said Manolo Campos ’25. 

For others, their objection is rooted less in aesthetic judgment and more in the sometimes-difficult question of separating art from vandalism. 

“I feel like graffiti has been so misused and has a past of being vulgar and disrespectful, so for me it’s hard to look past that,” said Ava McAliley ’26. 

All graffiti is illegal in Miami-Dade County, with the exception of projects—like Wynwood Walls—that are explicitly sanctioned by the property owner. Even so, proponents of the artform like Freidin, Rousseau, and Sofia Rakhimi ’25 argue that its illegality shouldn’t stop us from considering it a vital form of human creativity. 

“Vandalism isn’t necessarily graffiti, and graffiti isn’t necessarily vandalism,” said Rakhimi.  

For Freidin and Ms. Rousseau, the power of graffiti lies in its ability to bear witness to the person who made it.  

“Graffiti is the purest form of self-expression,” said Ms. Rousseau. “To say I am here, I exist. I think it’s so important to share that whether it’s legal or illegal, it’s the purest form of expression, and I’m all about creative expression.” 

“I’ve always felt like art was a way to get to know somebody on a deeper level because what you can communicate through your art, you can’t necessarily say out loud,” said Freidin. “Maybe you’re shy, or maybe it’s in your subconscious. I’m always fascinated by art as a means of communicating the unspoken.”