Pictures that denounce? In the Jungle of Calais, Banksy and the Hearts of Cardboard

Abstract

In this paper, I would like to question the political power of images in the urban space. To do this, I rely on the confrontation of two types of images displayed in Calais, a city now associated with the "migrant problem". On the one hand, I will study four interventions by street artist Banksy. On the other side, I will analyse images made by anonymous artists, in remote, less visible sites, on the walls, on the doors or on the windows of squats including migrants. While Banksy's images convey a political message denouncing the situation of migrants, politicians in Calais have said they want to protect these paintings. Conversely, anonymous images, which do not convey any political message, are systematically erased or rendered inaccessible. Based on the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Ranciere and Etienne Balibar, I would like to show that this paradox is perhaps explained less by the celebrity of Banksy than by the relation of images to space: Banksy’s murals maintain, even perpetuate, the divisions of space and the relations between social groups constituting the established order, whereas anonymous images suspend them for a while, to make heterotopic places exist.