the end: regrets and resolutions

IT'S DONE!!!

I just turned in my research paper last night.

I just turned in my research paper last night!

It feels weird to be typing this out, after months of thinking "How am I ever going to finish this??" and feeling like there was no end in sight. Now that it's over, I can't help but think about everything I wish I could have done better. I suppose that's human nature, to be stuck in the past or future-- we're time travelers of the mind. More and more, I'm realizing that Charles Yu's word is gospel. At this moment, I want to choose to celebrate how far I've come rather than focus on the road I took to get here.

That being said, I'm nothing if not an overanalyzer. . .

regrets

Some things I wish I could have done better:

Having more primary sources. The sources that I chose were really meaty, which was why I was O.K. with only using 6 scholarly peer-reviewed sources in my essay, but looking back, I think this may have limited the diversity of perspectives that I was able to incorporate in the paper and also my understanding of the topic. I wish I would have explored more opposing views.
Spending more time with the artist. I used Banksy's work of art as a segway to talk about all the points I wanted to hit, but I wish I took more time in the paper itself to integrate it and connect it to the other ideas I was trying to convey. I find his artistic portfolio and the other works in his oeuvre to be fascinating, and I wish I could have discussed those in-depth.
Spending less time on tangents. While I do think that bringing up 5Pointz was a great transition to my conclusion, in hindsight it may not have been wise to go so in-depth about a different primary source from the original topic. Perhaps making my discussion more concise, or using my space to talk about how it connects to Banksy would have been wiser.

resolutions

Some things I think I pulled off really well:

Integrating authors of diverse backgrounds. It might sound contradictory, but I actually love the sources that I chose. I was able to quote from a philosopher, a consumer behavior analyst, a preservations care expert, a teacher, and an art critic-- all in a tight six sources. I love how interdisciplinary it was, and yet how there were so many connections between their ideas.
Leaning into a strong argument. I tried hard in the beginning to keep the paper objective and free of my personal biases, but I realized this was actually limiting my creativity and the impact of my claim. By making my claim stronger and less neutral, I think I was really able to find the direction that I wanted to take the paper in-- and it paid off in the end, with a cohesive argument.
Making seemingly unrelated ideas connect. I believe that humanities, at its "core" (haha), is all about making connections. There are many things we observe and instinctually pick up on in life that we either just accept at face value or fail to question. However, this time I came to the realization that public space is socially constructed and therefore connected to everything.

what I've learned from pulling out my hair

I still remember how impossible everything felt at the beginning when I was in the process of figuring out how all the disjointed thoughts I had could come together. I remember wanting to pull out my own hair in frustration because I couldn't come up with an arguable thesis that could adequately summarize all the ideas buzzing around in my head. I've always been an overly verbose writer, and I tend to think myself into rabbit holes when I let myself loose. The challenge with research papers, I've found, is not so much the researching part as it is the organizing part. It's easy to repeat other peoples' arguments; it is much harder to make your own argument from theirs and put a fresh spin on it.

I suppose the greatest takeaway from this project has been to trust the process. For me, there's really no shortcut to writing a good paper, other than spending time thinking about it and letting the ideas marinate in my head. I first started by thinking about all the gripes I have with the capitalistic market for art, from the subjective standards of what is considered "valuable" to the drive for capitalistic consumerism taking all the joy and fun out of creating art. Art, to me, has never been a "rich person's game;" rather, I think of art as a democratizing force, a mirror of sorts that reflects back the viewer's desires, experiences, opinions, and subjective interpretations.

That's why street art has always been so appealing to me: artists like Banksy pack a punch in simple, yet powerful messages that everyone can appreciate regardless of their socioeconomic status or level of education. Seeing art like that feels like a breath of fresh air against the "exclusive" club in the art world that prizes prestige and pretentiousness. Some critics patronize Banksy's work for being "simple" and "straightforward," but I think that's actually the appeal. The ability to say in a few concise words or a single image what others take 15-page papers to say is Banksy's greatest strength.

I believe in protecting the authenticity of street art, and that means not allowing it to become yet another cog in the capitalistic machine. It's so easy for anti-establishment movements to succumb to market logic through institutionalization, making art into a commodified shopping experience rather than a plain old experience. It is dystopian that in today's world, being exposed to new ideas and diverse perspectives is something people have to pay for and go out of their way to accomplish. The mainstream in and of itself is not evil, but I believe that making media into a personalized echo chamber rather than a dual-sided conversation can have dangerous effects on society. Street art is one way to break up the mainstream, mundane elements of our daily life and expose people to uncomfortable truths. I find it beautiful, not in spite of but because of its "dirtiness."

Banksy often features rats in his works, an ode to the realities of city life. He seems to use rats as a symbol of all the things that authorities attempt to cover up, whether it's their sordid political schemes or the marginalization of communities living in slums in and around the city. In a way, rats are akin to the dirty truths that we witness daily, but choose to ignore or attempt to shoo away.