Messaging Roundup's Crucible Question #1: If, when, and how to wheatpaste

Our inaugural activism advice column with Minty Chauffeuse

Like we mean it, Julie Subrin, and Kate Dalton

Jul 30, 2026

A still from The Big Sleep, featuring Joy Barlow as Bogart's cabdriver, embedded in an antique encyclopedia page depicting mint. The text reads: Crucible Questions with Minty Chauffeuse

Hello and welcome to the inaugural edition of Crucible Questions.

This week’s question comes to us from Delia D’Afficher (not their real name).

Q I would love to have a little demo on making and applying wheat paste. Also, any tips and tricks you may have for making the process quicker... as I know it’s frowned upon in some circles. Is it best to play dumb if caught in the act by some concerned citizen? Or a member of the NYPD?

I have a lot to say, but the first request is for a recipe, and when I’m looking for a recipe, I do not want to have to scroll through an entire disquisition on the social history of the food and the writer’s relationship to that food. I want the recipe, so let’s start there.

Here is a recipe from Bengali multimedia artist Shurjo Mukhi’s excellent zine Wheatpasting as Resistance:

HOW TO MAKE WHEATPASTE:
1. measure out a ratio of 1:4 wheat flour to water. remove lumps
2 bring the water to a boil in the saucepan then add the flour
3 stir the micture on low heat till a slick slurry is formed
4. add more water. this will require trial and error (experimenting) to get your mixture to the desired thickness, while stirring continuously for 20-30 minutes
5 let this cool then store in sealed container. wheat paste can last about 5 days refrigerated

how to wheatpaste
1. pick a smooth surface (metal ideal), concrete, brick work
2. apply an even layer of paste the size and span of your poster with your brush
3. place your poster flat (smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles)
4. and another thin layer of paste on top
5. check corners

Wheatpasting is something I learned to do as a teenager in the 80s. At that time, you’d get a call on your landline phone asking if you wanted to go help a band flyer for their next gig. It was a fun thing to do, at night, with friends, to help other friends. Gradually, we started also to do this with messages for ACT-UP, but mostly, to begin with, it was a guerilla marketing technique.

The relevant city ordinance was the same then, but the stakes were very different. If you went out at night flyering for a band or for ACT UP, there was no way for you to be caught. There were no surveillance cameras at all, let alone on every building, and there was no instantaneous communication. A person wishing to report you would need to go to a phone booth, insert a dime, dial the local precinct, and file a report. The desk sergeant would need to decide if there was any point in sending a beat cop after you, when actual crimes were being committed, to issue a fine, knowing that you’d be gone before they got there.

Now is not then. Wheat is the same, and resistance is the same. Calvin Ball enforcement by the NYPD is the same – which is to say – is always different depending on the mood of the officer in the moment – but the panopticon and cell phones change the calculus. You are more likely to be caught, and while, yes, it is only a fining offense, and yes, the plain language of the ordinance obviously intends to address “permanently affixed” banners, rather than banners which will melt off with the next rain, cops will cop, and on the street, in the moment, your rights aren’t guaranteed.

So, before you go out wheatpasting, have “the talk” with yourself. Free expression is important; creative use of third spaces is important; a public square not owned by an oligarch is important – but your safety is also important. If you are stopped, be polite to a fault, make no sudden movements, and obey the officer’s instructions even if they are irrational, or stupid, or based on a direct misunderstanding of the statutes.

How do I personally square this circle? I don’t have a rational answer. I have been putting up the new ICE hotline info, when I happen to be stopped at a corner waiting for a light, but I haven’t gone out flyering, stopping at every pole, since NO Kings 3. I likely will go out with election protection messages, at some point between now and the midterms.

I definitely wouldn’t do it for a friend’s band. But that’s okay. My band friends all have Instagram pages now. Alas.