Alexis Lerner

Alexis Lerner, assistant professor and author of Post-Soviet Graffiti (based on a decade of regional ethnography). She traces how graffiti and street art bypass censorship, the politics of location and state-sponsored murals, and how artists navigate festivals, corporate work, and survival in authoritarian spaces. The conversation highlights fieldwork methods and a vast photo archive across the post-Soviet region.

Alexis Lerner, assistant professor and ethnographer of post-Soviet cities, shares a decade of graffiti fieldwork. She traces graffiti’s roots from Perestroika to corporate festivals. She maps how location, language, and state murals shape dissent. She contrasts illicit midnight work with sanctioned street art and previews a public online archive.