Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow’s Nest
By Matthew McGovern, Daysha Moore & Alisha Durosier
“This is senseless destruction of culture out here today,” University of South Florida St. Petersburg graduate psychology student Jackson Nash-Sembler said, as he watched the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) paint over “Fluid Structures,” the campus’ street mural.
Nash-Sembler was one of the many students on campus who witnessed the FDOT removing the mural. Painted in 2023 by USF St. Petersburg graphic arts professor Jay Giroux and 10 students from the graphic arts program, the mural was a part of that year’s Shine Mural Festival.
Around 3 p.m. on Aug. 29 it was one of the first murals in St. Petersburg to be painted over after FDOT denied the City of St. Petersburg’s request to keep the city’s five street murals, a pushback against FDOT’s June memo ordering Florida cities to remove “non-standard surface markings” or risk losing state funding.
This is not the first mural to be removed in the state thus far. Florida cities like Daytona Beach and Orlando were among the first to remove its street murals, including an Orlando mural commemorating the deaths of 49 people outside of the Pulse nightclub, which was painted over on Aug. 21.
“I generally am very much against it,” sophomore criminology major Isabella Rodriguez said. “I disagree with what they’re doing. I think it’s very much backwards thinking, especially in St. Pete.”
St. Petersburg is known for its expansive art scene, having over 600 public murals, five of which are street murals.
“There’s so much else that we could be… doing with any of these funds, but nope, got to take the art out of the art district,” junior biology major Lily Mclane said, noting the city’s high homeless population and need for improved hurricane resilience.
Senior psychology and criminology major Caity Crossman stressed that the mural has only been on campus for two years.
“I remember them working on it for like a whole week straight,” Crossman said. “Now it just looks like a blob of paint.”
In response to the mural’s removal, Mclane and several students, including Crossman, chalked a mural of their own on St. Petersburg’s pier.
“Keep art in the art district,” it read.
Sophomore English and digital communications and multimedia journalism major Kira, who helped chalk the mural, said the process felt incredible.
“We somehow managed to gather a bunch of other people who would walk by and chat with us,” she said. “That’s the point of the murals in St. Pete, is to create community like that, and they’re taking that away from us.”
