Red Paint Resistance: A Spatial‐Temporal Case Study of Graffiti as Civil Resistance in Contemporary Settler‐Colonial Canada

Drawing from research conducted across 2021–2024, this article presents the case study of an often‐graffitied Queen Victoria statue in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. Through engaging red paint on this physical colonial monument, it is demonstrated that graffiti has the capacity to be an important method of civil resistance that can influencially be employed in local grassroots actions. In doing so this analytical case study engages the significance of spatial (where) and temporal (when) influences to offer a contextualized understanding of how rupturing aesthetic order and challenging public colonial narratives physically and visibly at a specific moment in time can further public discussion about the way places are named, marked, and navigated.