Winner—Visual Communication Division Outstanding Book Award​, National Communication Association (NCA)  How a city government in central Mexico evolved from waging war on graffiti in the early 2000s to sanctioning its creation a decade later, and how youth navigated these changing conditions for producing art. The local government, residents, and media outlets in León, Mexico, treated graffiti as a disease until the state began sponsoring artistic graffiti through a program of its own. In Voices in Aerosol , the first book-length study of state-sponsored graffiti, Caitlin Frances Bruce considers the changing perceptions and recognition of graffiti artists, their right to the city, and the use of public space over the span of eighteen years (2000–2018). Focusing on the midsized city of León, Bruce offers readers a look at the way negotiations with the neoliberal state unfolded at different levels and across decades. Issues brought to light in this case study, such as graffiti as a threat and graffiti as a sign of gentrification, resonate powerfully with those germane to other urban landscapes throughout the Western Hemisphere and beyond. Combining archival work, interviews, considerations of urban planning, local politics in Mexico, and insights gained by observing graffiti events and other informal artistic encounters, Bruce offers a new lens through which to understand the interplay between sanctioned and unsanctioned forms of cultural expression. Ultimately, Voices in Aerosol builds a strong case for graffiti as a contested tool for "voicing" public demands. Voices in Aerosol is an important contribution to the field of visual rhetoric. Through its sustained ethnographic case study of graffiti in León, it offers an alternative lens through which to view public art in Mexico that moves the work of contemporary writers out from under the long shadow cast by Mexican Muralism. ― CAA Reviews Published On: 2024-09-11 [ Voices in Aerosol is] a richly diverse mosaic of testimonies and documental sources...Bruce reconstructs with keen critical insight the history of graffiti in León, from the 1990s to 2018. ― Revista de Estudios Hispánicos Published On: 2024-06-01 [This book] demonstrates the relevance of ethnographic method as an approach to mural practices in general, as large-scale visual form can only gain purchase on large-scale urban surfaces through negotiation with non-artist actors. ― Bulletin of Spanish Visual Studies Published On: 2025-05-01 With  Voices in Aerosol , Caitlin Bruce has solidified her place as a foremost thinker in the field of visual rhetoric. Moreover, by attending to the productive tensions between graffiti and institutions, Bruce challenges how scholars of resistance and expressive culture have reductively characterized the way rhetorical agents engage with power. Visually captivating, masterfully written, and theoretically sophisticated, this book will change the way you think and see. -- Karma R. Chavez, University of Texas at Austin, author of The Borders of AIDS: Race, Quarantine, and Resistance Voices in Aerosol is an important contribution to the field of visual rhetoric. Through its sustained ethnographic case study of graffiti in León, it offers an alternative lens through which to view public art in Mexico that moves the work of contemporary writers out from under the long shadow cast by Mexican Muralism. ― CAA Reviews Published On: 2024-09-11 [ Voices in Aerosol is] a richly diverse mosaic of testimonies and documental sources...Bruce reconstructs with keen critical insight the history of graffiti in León, from the 1990s to 2018. ― Revista de Estudios Hispánicos Published On: 2024-06-01 Caitlin Frances Bruce is an associate professor of communication at the University of Pittsburgh. Her first book, Painting Publics: Transnational Legal Graffiti Scenes as Spaces for Encounter , won the Jane Jacobs Urban Communication Foundation Book Award.