HIST30071 Urban Legends: Melbourne Intensive Ainara Marnez-Miranda Subcultural movements are conceptualized as forms of resistance to parent cultures and orthodoxy, and were once used as a label given to different forms of social problems (McAuliffe, 2004). However, it is becoming increasingly normal for subcultural activities to be absorbed, commodified, and disseminated among the public through mass-media culture and commercialization (McAuliffe, 2004). This process is called cultural “recuperation”: a practice wherein radical ideas, practices, and social revolts are attempted to be neutralized, by absorbing them to be defused, into commercial space (McAuliffe, 2004; McGaw, 2008; Vaneigem, 2013). A prime example of this is how the punk movement was absorbed, and softened, through a process of being commodified so that it could hold commercial viability in the fashion industry (McAuliffe, 2004; McGaw, 2008). The same process is occurring for street art in Australia, and also specifically for stencil graffiti art in Melbourne (Smallman, Nyman, & Poole, 2005; Vaneigem, 2013). However this is in itself does not constitute as a negative development for all subcultures, and Melbourne’s street artists are a prime examples of how people may capitalize on such a phenomena (McGaw, 2008). This essay will argue that the title Melbourne holds as a “Stencil Graffiti Capital” indefinitely reflects an acceleration towards this subcultural movement of stencil graffiti art, and Melbourne’s street art in general, being commodified. This has moreover led to an acceptance of street art, and it greatly being synthesized into the Australian national identity. I will support this argument in two ways: firstly delineating how the stencil graffiti art subculture has transitioned from hiding in the shadows into being indoctrinated into mainstream culture through participation in publicly-sanctioned, successful commercial events like the Melbourne Stencil Festival. Secondly, by examining how the nature of government attitudes towards graffiti artists has changed from pure animosity to being more contradictory and uncertain: as a result of a desire for the economy to profit from the subculture. The term “Street Art”, per se, denotes a divergent number of practices: in modern times most commonly including but not limited to tagging (a form of abstract writing), sticker and poster-art,