Graffiti and Street Art in Port Harcourt: Aesthetics, Identity, and Urban Space

Street art and graffiti have emerged as significant modes of visual expression in Nigerian cities, occupying contested spaces at the intersection of vandalism, political commentary, and recognised art practice. This study investigates the aesthetics, identity dimensions, and spatial politics of graffiti and street art in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, situated in Nigeria's South South geopolitical zone. A qualitative research design is employed, combining photographic survey documentation of street art works in the Trans-Amadi, GRA, and Diobu areas with in-depth interviews conducted with 12 street artists and 8 urban planners and cultural administrators. Content analysis is applied to the visual works to identify thematic concerns including oil politics, youth identity, environmental protest, and popular culture references. The theoretical framework draws on urban cultural geography, postcolonial visual studies, and the scholarship on graffiti as a legitimate art form with its own aesthetic conventions and institutional trajectories. The oil economy context of Port Harcourt gives street art in the city a distinctive political charge that distinguishes it from Lagos-centric studies that dominate the existing Nigerian literature. Recent scholarship has examined how young artists in the Niger Delta use public space as an alternative exhibition venue and political forum outside institutional gatekeeping. The study contributes to the urban arts literature and provides insights relevant to Port Harcourt's urban development authorities, art administrators, and cultural policy advocates. Keywords: street art, graffiti, Port Harcourt, urban identity, visual culture