Territory

Actively treating the public space in what is considered the act of violence, (football) club supporters arrange the space with graffiti, banners and club emblems. Visually manifesting the club identificators they not only adapt the public space, but also metaphorically acquire territory, temporarily or permanently overtaking it. By the aesthetic act they rename the specific part of the city, usually a block, and in that way the emblem becomes a carrier of locality and territoriality. The geography of the city is redefined by splitting it into well-defined and marked territories, as the territorial claim is based on the ideological division. The city is mapped and marked by the space parameters which have informative, identificational and even existential function. These signs of places mean ritualization of the local space in which community gathers identifying itself with the club. Identification at the same time means differentiation from another group formed around the cult of another, usually hostile, club. The paradox of these alternative divisions is that they are publicly available as they often appear in form of noticeable large-scale space adaptations, and at the same time private and distant to the viewer. Interventions are then seen as bare artless decoration, but beyond the unseen lie the specific language and a value system known to the members of the community.