ABSTRACT
There is a productive relationship between wonder, subversion and newness. The experience of wonder is here critically assessed in order to determine its affinity to newness and to subversion, and the relationship between newness and subversion itself is worth considering. A tactical invocation of wonder as subversive, renewing praxis presents itself in the work of visual artist and designer Felieke van der Leest, and two street art collectives, namely the Graffiti Research Lab and the Tokolos Stencil Collective. Several examples of their work are discussed here in terms of the subversion of dominant tropes relating to gender, genre, race, class and sexuality, and wonder is interpreted to be an essential aspect of their decentring discourse. It is possible to assert that it is wonder that makes the new tangible, thereby enabling its very existence, and that without wonder, the decentring of established socio-cultural institutions would be inconceivable. The following sections address the ontological dimension of the experience of wonder and its implications for ethical conduct in relation to the other.
