Alaa Awad, 32, a graffiti artist based in Luxor, sees the citizens’ interaction with graffiti as “positive.” “People take what we are doing seriously. We express social, economic, political, and sometimes, religious conditions, that are linked because of the context in the country. We found that when we attempt to engage people with a certain idea, they encourage us. Almost everyone loves what we do…except those who are against revolution, of course,” Awad says.
“There will always be a moral objection to art, regardless of what is
really happening on the ground or on the medium. What is important here is to engage
citizens in the idea,” Awad says about the objection of some citizens to
certain forms of graffiti bearing insults. “When the incident of Set el Banat
(the girl with the blue bra) happened, citizens did not object to what happened
from a moral standpoint. Many of them blamed the girl, saying: What is it that
made her go there?” Awad adds.
Those who work in graffiti do not occupy themselves so much with rules.
Graffiti's first rule is to break all rules, even technical ones. Not part of
an art exhibition, graffiti appears to be free of all restrictions. The spirit in
which the graffiti artist works requires an understanding of how citizens see
their work. Mohammed Bassiouni, a 31 year-old government worker, stopping to
watch what he considers aesthetically pleasing “painting” on the walls of downtown,
says: “The youth who paint are mostly rebels, expressing their opinion through
graphics that have changed the traditional look of the area’s streets.”
When I asked Bassiouni whether he understands all the graffiti that he
sees, he says, “Yes.” When shown graffiti of a girl wearing a mask that hides half
of her face, under which is written “Set el Banat,” he says: “I think that this
graffiti is a decree for rebel girls to express that they will not give up on
the revolution.” When I explained to him that this graffiti was designed after a
girl was stripped in the events of crackdown on the sit-in at the Council of
Ministers, he said: “I did not know that. My view has not changed towards the
design, but now that I’ve learned this information, I see that the girl's eye is
full of challenge and determination.”
Mohamed Ali, 25, and Amr Mahmoud, 27, both working as marketing representatives
in a pharmaceutical company, were walking on Mohamed Mahmoud Street when I
stopped them to ask their opinion about graffiti. In the beginning, Ali said he
believes that this painting is an unnecessary disfiguration, especially as it encourages
some young people to write insults on the walls, thereby expressing his
disapproval of insults. At that, Mahmoud objects, saying he noticed that the ground
next to walls that have been covered in graffiti is now clean, because people
are becoming “shy” to throw rubbish underneath them and cleaners are now more
eager to keep them clean. He gives an example of a wall between a piece of land
and the street: “Usually there was garbage next to it, but now it is clean
since the wall was painted,” Amr adds.
Retreating from his opinion, Ali gives another example of a wall at the
Faculty of Physical Education in Al Haram, which has been clean since the college’s
students drew graffiti on it, supporting the Ultras groups and as an obituary
for their martyrs. When asked whether they understand everything that graffiti
artists have done, they say, “Yes.” When I show them graffiti of a ballet
dancer facing a young, masked man, normally dressed, who looks like he is
dancing and holds an Egyptian flag in one of his hands, they say that the only
thing they can understand of this graffiti is that it is a beautiful painting
including ballet dancers. This painting was a copy of a picture that had been
circulating among activists, combining a photograph taken of a rebel in the
events of Mohamed Mahmoud Street, who was returning a tear gas bomb to the
security forces who fired it, and another picture of an unknown ballet dancer.
But that blending did not mean anything for them.
Reda Mahmoud, 46, who works as a parking attendant on Mohamed Mahmoud
Street, saw the graffiti that depicts a ballerina next to a rebel as a ”beautiful
art” like every other painted graffiti on the area’s walls. Specifically, the painted
faces of martyrs on the wall of the American University can be considered a “museum
of the revolution in the street,” says Reda Mahmoud. “Everyone understands what
the youth of Fine Arts are doing, for they understand what they are doing. That
is basically their work, they got their college degrees for stuff like that,” Mahmoud
adds.
Reda Mahmoud believes that the youth are expressing their opinions
through these paintings, which people understand well, he says. Commenting on graffiti
showing a winged snake with feet, wearing camouflage fatigues and military
shoes, and with three human heads, each of them a face of a member of the
military council, Reda says: “For example, who drew this sees those people as
snakes. It is possible that he knows some things we don’t know, and it could be
that what he sees is true.”
This article appeared in AlMasry AlYoum on 28 March 2013.
This article appeared in AlMasry AlYoum on 28 March 2013.