Street artists painting Maadi bridge for #Coloringthrucorruption. Photo courtesy of Nazeer

Egyptian graffiti artists are doing more than just painting art on street walls, they’re creating social awareness campaigns against corruption, media brainwashing, poverty and sexual harassment, and also using graffiti to beautify slum areas of Cairo to restore a sense of pride, ownership and hope to its residents.

Graffiti artist Nazeer and Zeft have launched a new awareness campaign called #ColoringThruCorruption, where they paint walls, water pipes and other public surfaces to raise awareness about corruption and how the Egyptian government is stealing the money of its people. As Nazeer wrote on his page:

احنا مش جايين نلون عشان تبقي الحياه حلوة و بتاع – بالعكس تماماً – دي طريقة اخترناها عشان نشد انتباهكم لواقع الامر. فلوسكم بتتسرق، الفلوس اللي بتدفعوها كل سنة عشان تجددوا رخصة عربياتكم و المخالفات و تطوير المرافق و الطرق و الكباري … و فواتير المية ، و الكهربة، و الغاز و الاي كلام. الفلوس بتدخل الصناديق الخاصة، بتروح للمحافظين و المجالس المحلية و بعدين في الاخر تلاقي الطرق مدمرة، بلاعات في كل حتة بتبلع بني ادمين و تكسر عربيات، بيوت ما بيوصلهاش مية و كهربة و غاز.
هو دة الواقع المخزي.
هنلون الفساد عشان نشد انتباه الناس و بعدين نقولهم رسالتنا.
المرة دي كنا حوالي 10، المرة الجاية 20 ان شاء الله. 40، 60، 100. هنلون العشوائيات، أكبر دليل علي الفساد لما يكون واحد عايش في قصر و تعدي الشارع بس تلاقي واحد عايش في خرابة.

We’re not painting to make life pretty- on the contrary, this is our way of drawing your attention to the reality of the situation: the government is stealing your money, the taxes you pay every year to renew your car license, pay your traffic tickets, pay for the roads, bridges and highways to be maintained, pay for your water/gas/electricity bills and so on. This money goes into the personal accounts of the governors and the local councils. In the end, you find the roads ruined and full of holes that damage your cars. So many homes without access to water or electricity or gas. This is the devastating reality. We’re painting corruption to draw people’s attention and then tell them our message. This time we were ten people painting. Next time we’ll be twenty, forty, sixty, a hundred with God’s will. We will paint the slum areas. The biggest proof of corruption is when one man lives in a palace and across the road, another man lives in a slum.

Water pipes painted to raise awareness about public corruption. Photo courtesy of Nazeer

For more information on the campaign, check their google documents page. You can reach Nazeer on twitter and Zeft on twitter too.

Zeft’s previous campaigns include his Nefertiti mask graffiti, which was endorsed by anti-sexual harassment campaigns and spread to protests around the world in support of Egyptian women.

photo courtesy of Ahmed Hayman

Nazeer’s previous campaigns include graffiti calling for a return to protests in Tahrir during 2011 and his graffiti of Iman Salama, a murder victim whose death received little media coverage. Nazeer made the stencil for EIPR- the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, an NGO that wanted to draw attention to Iman’s murder.

Nazeer’s graffiti of Iman Salama. Photo courtesy of Nazeer

Nazeer’s Maspiro graffiti in Maadi, part of a series of graffiti to raise awareness about the state media’s lies, brainwashing and incitement that led to violence and death of protesters, especially Maspiro October 2011

Nemo is a street artist in Mansoura who has made graffiti raising awareness about street children, homeless people and poverty as well as sexual harassment. He is one of the most diligent street artists in Egypt and has dedicated pretty much every single graffito he’s made to honoring martyrs, advocating the revolution and drawing attention to the impoverished and disenfranchised millions of Egyptians. You can check his blog here. All these images are taken from his Facebook page. Watch an interview with Nemo in this upcoming documentary ‘In the Midst of Crowds’ here.

You who are sleeping under mountains of money, ask about the bridges under which the children sleep

‘I am hungry’. Photo courtesy of Nemo.

‘I am dying of cold’. Photo courtesy of Nemo.

His new campaign is to plaster sliced photographs of Egyptian faces on the iron walls of Gamaa Bridge in Mansoura. This one below is my favourite, of Abo El Thowar, who has become an icon of the Tahrir protests for his resilience and poetic protest posters.

Photo courtesy of Nemo

I first came across the work of the Mona Lisa Brigade back when they tagged over the anti-revolution graffiti made on Ganzeer’s bike versus tank mural back in 2012. Aside from some really funny stencils, including Mary Moneeb and this mural of bearded men in Zamalek, their best work is their Ard El Lewa project.

The project is called ‘I want to be’, where the artists painted on the walls of people’s homes in the Cairo slum of Ard El Lewa. The children of the neighbourhood were photographed, and their images made into graffiti on the walls of the narrow, grim alleyways. For more info about Mona Lisa Brigades, please check their Facebook page.

Photo courtesy of Mona Lisa Brigades

Such a simple gesture can bring so much hope and joy to an otherwise neglected neighbourhood. Using graffiti to beautify an area has an effect on the entire neighbourhood because it restores a sense of pride and ownership of the walls to the community. The project is a great example of using street art to help a community.

“After doing a great deal of research in Ard al-Lewa, we discovered there were thousands of children who have had almost no voice or representation throughout this movement,” Mohamed Ismail, one of the founding members, told Egypt Independent. “We sprayed stencils of their faces along the walls. Under each image, we included the child’s dream. This way, whenever those kids walk by their faces on the wall, they will never forget their dreams.”

Photo courtesy of Mona Lisa Brigades

All of these initiatives are good examples of putting street art to good use, diverting it from its usual political course to spread positive messages, educate, raise awareness and help others that are completely ignored by the state. These artists are great people and deserve credit and recognition for their hard work. I hope they get it.

Photo courtesy of Mona Lisa Brigades

Photo courtesy of Mona Lisa Brigades

Pharaonic women in battle by Alaa Awad

It’s a battle, being a woman in an Arab country, but perhaps the dire conditions makes us fighters. Since January 25, so many foreign reporters have waxed on about the awakening of Arab women in the Arab Spring; and how the revolutions liberated us/made us wake up and smell the coffee/made us throw off our headscarves and run happily through the meadows.

This, in my opinion, is crap. When you look at the videos and photos of the eighteen days of Tahrir, you’ll see Egyptian women side by side with men in the thick of battles, some even at the front lines, braving tear gas and live bullets. We participated as Egyptians first, not as women, in January 25. And it’s incredibly patronizing to assume we ‘became’ liberated; 1. as if it was a revolution led by men that awakened and inspired us women 2. as if women were living in caves and making mud paintings before the revolution.

the Arab women I’ve met are some of the fiercest women in the world with sincere dedication to their work, cause and sense of identity. We didn’t experience an ‘awakening’ since the revolution; but we’ve definitely had to fight harder.

The last two years’ stories of horrific sexual and physical violence against women in Tahrir and many other depressing news could very easily break your will, change your mind about a woman’s place in protests and in Egypt as a citizen with equal rights. But then I think of these remarkable women and I am reminded of their strength, creativity and perseverance.

There are many powerful, brilliant Arab women, including several in the graffiti scene. Graffiti is a dangerous cause as it is, and with perpetual violence against women in Egypt, you’d think female graffiti artists would be too intimidated to work on the city streets. But they’re not; they’re young, tough, talented and just as worthy of recognition as their male counterparts.

Alexandria street art by Aya Tarek

Alexandrian painter and street artist Aya Tarek is considered by many of her peers to be one of the pioneers of graffiti in Egypt. She holds her ground against her male contemporaries, and has exhibited recently in Germany as well as Beirut. Aya appeared in Microphone, Ahmed Abdalla’s brilliant 2010 film about the underground art scene in Alexandria. She is the first graffiti artist in Egypt to appear in a feature film not only playing herself but also correctly representing the graffiti scene in Egypt.

Don’t touch, or castration awaits you. By Hend Kheera

Hend Kheera is the first Egyptian graffiti artist to be profiled by Rolling Stone. Her work has a tough, extreme and honest quality to it, and there’s nothing stereotypically feminine about her aesthetics. Hend made stencils in Mogamaa and around Tahrir during sit-ins in 2011. She participated in an anti-sexual harassment campaign by spraying the stencil ‘Warning! Don’t touch or castration awaits you!’. The stencil was shocking and provocative, compelling some bystanders to even berate Hend for making it, a surefire sign that her message was powerful and effective.

The brilliant mixed art mural by Hanaa El Degham on the wall of the Lycee school

Hanaa El Degham’s mixed art mural on the Lycee wall is to this date one of the most astounding street artworks I have seen in Egypt. She worked several layers over many days, combining barely finished paintings with stencils and newspaper collages. If you looked closely at the newspaper clippings, you’d find them completely spot-on and appropriate for the beautiful social commentary she was making by portraying the poorest of Egyptians carrying gas cylinders on their heads. A women fully clad in black niqab carries a gas cylinder with ‘Change’ sprayed on it. That visual in itself has so much to say.

Hanaa also worked for days with Ammar Abo Bakr and other painters on the Mohamed Mahmoud martyrs’ mural, adding frames and lotus flowers to several of the martyrs’ portraits.

Bahia Shehab’s No stencils, on same wall as Ganzeer’s tank

I’d seen Bahia Shehab’s stencils around Zamalek and Tahrir for months, but it was only until I watched her inspiring Tedx talk on YouTube when I made the connection. Bahia spoke beautifully and powerfully of fighting for social and political justice through art. Her stencil below is one of my favourite pieces, a stencil I spotted on the bleak concrete wall of Mansour Street. When you see such an inspiring and pretty quote on a grotesque concrete military construction, you regain hope; at least in the power and potential of art.

Pablo Neruda’s ‘You can step on the flowers but you can never delay the Spring’ by Bahia Shehab

No to sexual harassment, by Mira Shihadeh

There’s also Laila Magued, who works tirelessly day and night alongside Mohamed El Moshir and Ammar Abo Bakr in completing murals like this fantastic one on Sheikh Rihan Street, and there’s Mira Shihadeh who paints messages against sexual harassment, and draws crying faces on the streets of Cairo, with the simple message ‘Why’. I’m sure there are many other women to follow suit soon.

I am privileged to have met most of these women and watch them work. It takes a certain fierceness to persevere in creating unique, inspiring street art under the volatile and unpredictable conditions of the Egyptian streets.

Graffiti has also paid tribute to the women of Egypt, whether by honoring them like Alaa Awad’s pharaonic mural or by paying tribute to their bravery in battle like Zeft’s poster, or defending their rights to equality.

Don’t label me, by Nooneswa

Nooneswa (Noon El Neswa) is a collective of activists that uses graffiti to raise awareness about women’s rights and to lobby for gender equality. Noon El Neswa organised street campaigns where stencils featured Laila Mourad, Soaad Hosny and other iconic women of the Egyptian cinema, and slogans included film quotes or simple demands for equality. Nooneswa is the first collective of its kind to focus solely on women’s issues and use graffiti to raise awareness on the streets of Cairo. Their ‘Don’t Label Me’ design has since appeared in Tunisia, replicated by feminist activists there.

A Girl is just like a Boy, stencil by Nooneswa

graffiti made in support of the digital platform ‘The Uprising of women in the Arab World’

This graffiti on Mohamed Mahmoud Street paid tribute to the Uprising of Women in the Arab World, an online platform with over 80k followers that promotes Arab women’s rights using provocative and personal messages/photos of women.

During battles, I will be behind you, protecting you

This stencil on the wall of AUC’s Greek Campus is my favourite: instead of man protecting woman, this visual has the woman rescuing and protecting the man in battle. A brilliant testimony to the fierceness and loyalty of women in protest.

The stencils below are all tributes to the fighting spirit of Egypt’s women by Keizer, Zeft and Amr Nazeer, X4SprayCans and Ammar Abo Bakr, who paid tribute to Samira Ibrahim with a text that compared her to Aliaa El Mahdy. Abo Bakr described Samira Ibrahim as the true hero:

‘Samira Ibrahim: 25 years old. She was stripped and forcefully given a virginity testing in front of military officers and soldiers. She vowed not to stay silent and pursued legal action against them. no attention, no public interest, no media coverage, no one cares.
Aliaa El Mahdy. 20 years old. Stripped and revealed her whole body of her own free will, media and public went crazy, her nude photo was viewed almost 3 million times and no less than 50 articles and several tv shows about her.
A salute of respect to Samira Ibrahim, daughter of Upper Egypt.’

Fear Me, Government! Stencil by Keizer

Nefertiti with a tear gas mask, poster by Zeft. Photo courtesy of Zeft.

Ammar Abo Bakr’s touching tribute to Samia Ibrahim versus Alia El Mahdy

Get Angry, poster art by 4SprayCans

Sit El Banat, stencil tribute to the women who were beaten, dragged and stamped on by military forces in December 2011

the Mohamed Mahmoud mural and the brutal reality of the martyrs’ deaths

It was my first time to walk through Tahrir after three months away from Egypt, and I don’t quite know why I was so bewildered and shell-shocked. Perhaps it was the heaviness of the atmosphere in the square, the squalid tents and crowds of resilient protesters holding onto the last threads of dying hope. Perhaps it was the fact that the Mogamaa building was open and didn’t stink of urine anymore, or perhaps it was the graffiti of dead people’s faces on each and every wall. New names, old faces, the same old vows of vindication and justice. And so many young people; 15-year-olds, school children.

It’s hard to explain how nothing has changed yet everything has; how the space I once found home in is now an alien square to me. The people we’ve lost, medics, children, football fans, mothers and men of God, they’re now too many to remember. And it’s almost two years to January 25.

These are the real faces of the victims of police&military brutality, beaten and tortured to death, including Khaled Said

The Mohamed Mahmoud wall remains the most powerful tribute to the revolution, with Ammar Abo Bakr’s new message ‘If the picture needs to be made clearer, Sir, reality is more brutal, and as for the state’s response [to the martyrs]: saying it’s God’s Will means there will be no compensation to the families’.

The faces of Khaled Said, Esam Atta and two others are painted in their grotesque last shapes, bleak images of police brutality beyond imagination. Ammar added ‘And here are fifty kids like Anas’. Anas was the youngest victim of the Port Said clashes. The number fifty is probably a reference to the victims of the Assiut train crash of last month, whose faces and names have been drowned out and forgotten in our distraction with the referendum.

by Ammar Abo Bakr

the distorted face of a Sheikh, presumably by Iyad Oraby. A saying by the Prophet Mohamed PBUH reads: God does not look at your appearances and your money, but at your hearts and your deeds.

The martyrs Mina Daniel and Sheikh Emad Effat, both in galabeyas, Muslim and Christian, with their hands spread out over the faces of many other martyrs

This mural carries the faces of smiling martyrs: Ramy Ramzy, Essam Atta, Ahmed Sorour, Sally Zahran, Ahmed Saleh, Asmaa, Hossam Radwan, Khaled Omar…. the names are endless. And it’s heartbreaking. It’s equally heartbreaking to see that someone placed a photo of his son Mostafa Helmy El Said, martyred in December 2011, with dried flowers around his frame, next to Sheikh Emad Effat. Mostafa was a student at El Azhar, Sheikh Emad was a teacher.

Where is your bullet

Gika, Osama Mohamed, Abo El Hassan &Ahmed Mansour.

Then of course there was this Koranic verse that some newspapers panicked about and reported as salafi graffiti – had they taken the time to do minimal research, they’d have recognised the font, the colour and the statement as that of Ammar Abo Bakr’s, who first painted koranic verses on the AUC Greek campus wall and Mansour Street. The verse loosely translates to a reference of those who once they take power, destroy the earth and ignore the heed to obey God and claim to have God in their hearts but they are bound for hell.

Alaa Awad returns with his beautiful cave-like drawings of gazelles in flight, with slogans by 6 April and Ultras graffiti

Atef El Gawhary, Mina Eskandar, Ramy El Sharqawy, all martyrs of police or army attacks.

It was shocking to see the Lycee school in such destitute remains, with the trees chopped down to their roots and the walls full of soot and shrapnel, to see the graffiti of so many smiling faces pleading to be remembered and vindicated, and to know that I can do nothing nor help in any way to vindicate them.

Alaa Awad returns with a pharaonic mural that reads ‘I am the guardian of the Eastern gates; the [Mer3a] shall not return again

But today, the street feels like a museum of ghosts, not only of the dead, but of the fighting, the fighting spirit and the resilient hope for change, and in some sense, of me, an Egyptian who felt part of something massive and life changing and is now left with faces on a wall.

The Wall will fall, a new layer on top of the massive smile painted by Amr Nazeer, Zeft and Laila Magued

El Husseiny [Abo Deef] was a journalist at El Fagr who died this month in clashes at Itihadeya after he was shot in the head. The stencil simply reads ‘Who’s next after me?’

I don’t know at what point I started crying while taking these photographs, maybe it was the plea under Ahmed Saleh’s face ‘Remember Me’, but a kid walked by and laughed at me, and called to his friends that el khawageya is crying. I wanted to tell him ‘my brothers died on this street’ even though I’ve never met them.

‘Gada3 ya Basha’ is a reference to the Eye sniper of the Mohamed Mahmoud clashes, who was caught on camera being applauded by his fellow soldiers for shooting protesters in the eyes

They are killing the future, Gika was 17, Islam was 15. Graffiti by Hosny

The Interior Ministry has not changed, graffiti on the burnt walls of the Lycee school

Next to the now famous portrait of Mubarak’s face with Tantawi/El Morshed by Omar Picasso is a granite plaque paying tribute to the martyrs of the revolution.

A poem by Amal Donqol ends with the statement ‘the martyr remains more glorious and greater than his killers’. An incredibly touching tribute

Alaa Abdel Hady, medic and martyr, by Omar Picasso

Karim Khozam, Ultras fan and a martyr of the Port Said massacre in 2012. by Tefa

Mostafa Metwally: 1994-2012

Ahmed Saleh, remember me, I have not been vindicated. By Tefa

A mural of different men with different beards, but the same brain. It almost looks like the evolution progression from ape to man or vice versa

Essam Atta, a dignified and colourful portrait by Tefa on Mansour Wall

‘Fee Amal’, there is hope. Photo courtesy of Areej Mawasi

I wanted to post this later, but given the IDF’s current military operation against Gaza now with dozens of civilian deaths just last night alone, the artist Areej Mawasi asked me to post this in order to shed light about what’s happening in Palestine.

Areej is originally from the Northern town of Baqa El Gharbia. She now lives in East Jerusalem, and she studies at the Hebrew University. These are her own words.

Photo courtesy of Areej Mawasi

‘In my opinion, graffiti in Palestine is not as professional as it is in other countries – even though the separation wall and many other places are full of great street art, but still many of the works are made by international artists. And few of them are female.’

‘I started making graffiti using stencils and my own designs. First, I made graffiti in my own neighbourhood, like ‘Fee Amal’ [There is hope]. That’s on the wall next to my house, so I hope whoever sees it gets positive energy and prays for me.’

Three years ago, Areej participated in a street exhibition concerning human rights of civilians during war. She made a design of Apaches dropping rockets over a seaside playground in Yafa.

‘I chose the picture [of Yafa] because, Yafa is under an apartheid and everyone is ignoring that. The people there are living in terrible conditions. The picture is also about Gaza.’

The poster was supposed to be exhibited in an ‘Israeli’ city. One day after the exhibition launched, Zionist groups protested her work, accusing her of describing the Israeli occupation army as a killing machine. Areej’s poster along with two other pieces were removed from the exhibition, a sign of how powerful her art was. Furthermore, the protesters asked the Israeli Interior Ministry to punish the municipality of the city for allowing this art to be shown.

‘[Their reaction] made me appreciate the power of art more, I mean, I did not do anything, but, they got my message.’

Fee Amal/there is hope with Martin Luther King. Photo courtesy of Areej Mawasi

Three years later, Gaza is still under siege and almost daily attacks, and again, the whole world is not really doing anything about it.

So Areej adapted her Gaza design to a more sarcastic art piece featuring Martin Luther King pointing at the words There Is Hope as rockets rain down on the hope.

‘I’m just wondering what’s next, should we be hopeful till the end? Should we act the way Luther King did? Should we stay silenced when occupation is attacking the minimal we have left, the only thing that make us wake up full of energy every morning even though everything in our life is controlled? Should we say ‘There is hope’ when our dreams and our hope are controlled? That’s my question.’

Fee Amal/ There is hope. Photo courtesy of Areej Mawasi

Gaza is under attack by the IDF and civilians continue to pay the price, with bombings happening day and night, Areej added.

‘There’s not much awareness to the visual shape of the city, no awareness and no appreciation to graffiti. But graffiti is the only weapon I can handle. I know that protests are often futile, but this is the best I can do under the circumstances!’

Her work may be little in volume, but the sheer volume of emotions and power in her simple message and imagery to me perfectly exemplifies the root of protest art; it is based in raw and real struggle; be it against oppression, persecution, or death.

Despite the renewed attacks, Areej continues to work on her projects, including an upcoming collaboration with a fellow Palestinian female graffiti artist.

You can read her heart-wrenching anecdotes on her friends’ and families’ lives through the bombings on twitter at @rejism90 and on Facebook.

For more information about Areej and to view her photography and design work, please visit meetareej.
For more articles about Palestinian graffiti artists, please read this and this.

Stencil of the Tunisian flag and dove. Photo courtesy of Areej Mawasi

Fee Amal/ There is hope. Photos courtesy of Areej Mawasi

Souad Hosni stencil. Photos courtesy of Areej Mawasi.

Be With Palestine, an adaptation of Mohamed Gaber’s ‘Be with the Revolution’ next to a stencil of Palestinian author, artist and activist Ghassan Kanafani

Mural by Ammar Abo Bakr for White Wall Beirut. Photo courtesy of White Wall.

The past two years have given good exposure to the Egyptian street art scene. With increasing international media focus on graffiti artists – I’ve lost count of the number of print articles, news shorts and documentaries made – comes increasing interest on the part of foreign delegations looking to support and endorse the Egyptian art scene, as well as books and films that will hopefully strengthen the graffiti scene’s legitimacy in Egypt.

A graffiti school ‘Hetan’ (Arabic for walls) is in the process of opening up on Champolion Street in Downtown Cairo, and may become the first centre and resource for Egyptian graffiti artists.

There have also been several recent exhibitions by graffiti artists from Egypt in Lebanon, Germany, Swizerland and now the US. While they’re only a handful of artists and most of them are established and recognized names today, I hope that these exhibitions will open up opportunities for lesser known artists to get their break as well.

Here are a few photos of the recent exhibits by Egyptian artists El Teneen, Kareem Gouda, Ammar Abo Bakr, Aya Tarek, Ganzeer and Shank, as well as links to the exhibitions.

‘We Are Watching’ by Kareem Gouda for ‘Of The People’ exhibition. Photo courtesy of Kareem Gouda.

‘We Will Meet’ by El Teneen for ‘Of The People’ exhibition. Photo courtesy of El Teneen.

Kareem Gouda and El Teneen are exhibiting their original work alongside Shepard Fairey and the Gorilla Girls in ‘Of The People’ exhibition in Washington DC, from October 27 to November 23, 2012. More details here.

Aya Tarek’s work at White Wall Beirut. Photo courtesy of White Wall

Aya, Ammar and Shank exhibited their work in White Wall, a graffiti and street art exhibition in Beirut that ended on November 3, 2012 and featured incredible talent from several countries in the region. Read more here and view photos here.

Ammar Abo Bakr’s work with Zepha on Charles Helou Avenue, Beirut. Photo courtesy of White Wall

Ammar and Aya also exhibited their work alongside Ganzeer in an Arabic Graffiti exhibition in Frankfurt in April 2012. You can view more photos here.

Shank’s mural in White Wall Beirut’s exhibition. Photo courtesy of White Wall.

an aerial shot of Ganzeer’s mural about the ethics of arms expo in Switzerland. Photo courtesy of Ganzeer.

Read more about Ganzeer’s mural, which he exhibited in the Theaterfestival Basel, here.

PS: This is a shout out to an exhibition curator who contacted me to put them in touch with certain Egyptian graffiti artists. Without naming names, I regret passing their contacts on after you treated them like third-class artists, telling them you can’t afford to fly them out to the exhibition because you’re spending your money on ‘more important artists’, and selling their original work for ridiculously low prices while taking a massive percentage of their profits. Apparently this is not a random case, and several artists have stories of being cheated out of profits or forced to pay for their own accommodation or materials, etc.

Organizers, treat the artists with respect. Just because they’re lesser known and aspiring doesn’t mean they’re idiots, and the next time this happens, I will do what I can to expose you orientalist organizers exploiting Egyptian talent and cheating them out of their profits, and make sure you’re humiliated.  A little bad press won’t hurt.

Wipe it off, and I’ll Paint Again

Keep Wiping off [Graffiti], You Cowardly Regime

But painting over a mural that has paid tribute to the martyrs and heroes of the revolution and become a symbolic and open memorial for the Egyptian public, well that’s just barbaric.

The original mural: Forget What Happened

Original mural: and focus on the elections instead

The wounds haven’t healed, the faces haven’t been forgotten long enough for authorities to get away with erasing a chapter in our recent, volatile history. The Port Said case and the plight of the Ultras have made news headlines in recent months what with the sham of the court case declaring all perpetrators innocent and the Football Federation going ahead with an Ahly football match despite the outrage of the Ultras and families of the martyrs.

It’s as if, step by step, we’ve been moving towards a clean slate, where nothing ever happened. No policemen have been sentenced for the murder of January 25 protesters, and the country’s security chiefs have been exonerated due to lack of evidence that they ordered the killing of protesters (because videos, photographs and eye witnesses don’t count).

In this attempt to re-write history and change facts so that future generations assume the Muslim Brotherhood had started the revolution and remained loyal to it, and the army never laid a finger and didn’t shoot a single bullet at those bad, bad protesters, I assumed the public memory would allow the painting over of the Mohamed Mahmoud mural. With almost two years of political fatigue, indifference and distraction; I can hardly blame them.

But what ensued was surprising: yesterday, artists, activists and members of the Ultras as well as 6 April returned to the walls and created new graffiti over the freshly painted walls. What we have lost was a beautiful work of art; what we have gained is fresh fury and reignited debate.

Mural by Hanaa El Degham on wall of Lycee school

Now: ‘Gada3 ya Basha’ a reference to the infamous video showing police officers cheering on their colleague for aiming and shooting protesters in the eye in September 2011 protests

Today, I listened to clusters of men arguing over the Muslim Brotherhood and Morsi, debating anarchy versus order. Some decried the lewd phrases, saying ‘This is not within our culture’, others brushed off the new graffiti as made by ‘a bunch of delinquents with nothing better to do.’ But at least there was debate. After months of stagnation and silence, it was good to hear Mohamed Mahmoud humming with tension again.

Before: Alaa Awad’s mural on the Lycee school wall

Now: People, why have you betrayed the blood of the martyrs?

The new graffiti that has appeared takes on several fights: the graffiti artist versus the establishment, the protester versus the police, the betrayal of the revolution, the Muslim Brotherhood and Mohamed Morsi. Noticeably absent is the SCAF, the once poster child of the revolution’s enemy.

Instead, Mubarak’s face has returned to haunt us, on the heads of the CSF soldiers, and in the equation with Mohamed Morsi. It’s symbolic of how the new regime reflects the same brutality and oppression of the old regime. Nothing has changed, the artists claim.

Now: Freehand graffiti dares the authorities to paint over again, between the faces of Mohamed Morsi and presumably an angry protester

Before: The original mural of the Port Said martyrs with angel wings in February 2011

Now: ‘They killed our brothers and got innocent verdicts, the revolutionary is always right’

While most of the walls are filled with furious messages and amateur street art when compared to the previous layers, there is no doubt that this is just one of many layers to be added over the coming weeks. The authorities have given the artists a new spark to light a fire with, a new drive to use art for their movement against the establishment, the regime, the police and censorship of free speech.

It may take a while for Egyptian authorities to understand that a freshly painted wall is nothing more but an enticing invitation for new graffiti to be made. The AUC was admittedly clever in its approach when it publicly announced its preservation of the wall: by keeping it intact, the institution preserved an important and emotional visual symbol for many Egyptian people. The mural’s relevance and resonance made it sacred, preventing other graffiti artists from vandalizing it – save for the artists who’d made the original mural – thus maintaining a sense of order through this art. Now the flood gates have re-opened.

Good job.

Now: You wiped off the faces of the martyrs of Port Said before you vindicated their deaths

Before: The portrait of a martyr’s mother in black, holding her son’s photograph as a reminder of everything lost and nothing gained

Before: a martyr’s mother hugging a photo of her son, who died in the Port Said riots in February 2012. As of yet, the perpetrators of the riot remain unsentenced, the families have yet to be vindicated.

Now: Graffiti of Morsi and Mubarak, one and the same

Before: He who has descendants never dies

Now: a brilliant drawing of the artist against the soldier holding a baton, as Mubarak-faced soldiers hide behind their shields

Mazinger Mural by Aref and Hoda Ismail in Maadi

A street artist once told me: “Graffiti is the one tangible thing we have gained from the revolution,” and I agree with him.

Over the past 18 months, since graffiti began to appear on walls around Egypt during the January 25 uprising, street art has evolved into a scene of diverse styles, inspirations, methods and characters. While it is still perceived by many Egyptians to be “pointless scribbling” on the walls, Egyptian graffiti has garnered international attention and recognition.

One of the best pieces to be produced after the revolution: Checkmate by El Teneen

Today, many of the artists that I have followed and whose work I have photographed over the past year have exhibited their work in international art galleries; they have been commissioned for magazine cover art and have given lectures and been featured in documentaries about their work.

It is heartening to see them receive the credit they deserve. The past months of documenting street art around Cairo have been absolutely fascinating, with thousands of graffiti produced, many of which share intelligent concepts and clean execution.

Most of the graffiti I have documented are intrinsically connected to the ebb and flow of political currents in Egypt. I like to think that you can read my country’s recent history through graffiti, tracing back the chronology of protests, triumphs and failures, deaths and celebrations.

Now the walls of Cairo’s streets are covered in so many layers of graffiti and posters, grime and fumes, that studying the layers is like reading a book on everything these walls have witnessed.

The uprising, the downfall, the unity and the coming apart are all shown in street art pieces like the checkmate on a chess board or the imposing tank pointing its loaded snout at a man on a bike carrying bread on his head.

Khaled Said’s face next to ‘Interior Ministry police are thugs’ on the wall of the Mogamaa building

There are the simple, heart-wrenching scribbles of “I want to see a new president before I die” or the more poetic “Let us unleash a revolution of love”.

There are faces of cartoon characters, like the sad panda with its drooping belly and forlorn expression, or the angel-winged martyrs Mina Daniel and Sheikh Emad Effat, who have now become icons of the revolution and of religious unity in Egypt.

Daniel was shot dead by security forces during protests outside the Maspiro state TV building in October, while Sheikh Effat, a cleric at Al Azhar, was shot in the stomach by military police during protests in Tahrir Square in December.

The different influences of street art in Cairo reference everyone from Banksy to Egyptian comedic actor Ismail Yaseen, from Street Fighter to former interior minister Habib El Adly.

What started out as a new art form experimenting with different styles but heavily influenced by prominent western graffiti has since evolved into a more Egypt-conscious style, weaving Arabic calligraphy with Egyptian pop culture icons. A quote by Nietzsche is stencilled in Arabic next to the smiling face of Mohamed Reda, a popular singer and actor, symbolising the fusion of past and present, western literature with Arabic cinema, in this evolving, raw and vibrant street art.

Mural of Mohamed Reda by Charles Akl and Amr Gamal, made in mid-2011

Controversial street art rarely lasts on the streets of Cairo, especially if it touches on the army, the Islamists or sexuality. Blatant criticism of popular figures is rarely tolerated: the head of controversial Salafi politician Hazem Abu Ismail on the body of a rooster was painted over hurriedly just hours after the artists finished.

We Shall Live like Chickens – a play on Hazem Abo Ismail’s campaign slogan of We shall live with honour. Mural by El Moshir and friends

Other short-lived visuals include the soldier who carefully places a baby into a fire, and the female silhouette warning men of castration if they sexually harass a woman.

Simple but poignant graffiti resonates with me personally, such as the puppeteer wearing a military beret controlling the strings to which presidential candidates are attached. Another perfect visual is a voluptuous woman dressed in a belly-dancing outfit, carrying the scales of justice and sporting a military beret and moustache.

Much of the graffiti in Cairo has been political, if not influenced by political events. Faces stare back at you from walls all around Cairo, especially near Tahrir Square – the heartbeat of all protests since the January 25 uprising.

Speak/See/Hear no evil mural by Ammar Abo Bakr on Mohamed Mahmoud wall.

The faces are either heroes or villains: the enemies of the January 25 revolution have changed from Mubarak and his aides, to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (Scaf), and finally to members of the Muslim Brotherhood and other politicians accused of betraying the revolution.

Meanwhile, the faces of martyrs lost and activists incarcerated continue to proliferate on the walls; their names too many to remember, but graffiti serves as a visual reminder and an emotional stimulus of our recent, often traumatic history.

The blood of the martyrs is on your hands, Maspiro. Mural by Amr Nazeer

The Mohamed Mahmoud mural is a great example of history being recorded through street art.

This mural on Mohamed Mahmoud Street – just off of Tahrir Square and the site of violent protests late last year – depicts dozens of young Egyptian men as angels, just some of the 75 young football fans who were beaten, stabbed and crushed to death in the Port Said football stampede last February.

A group of artists began painting the mural the night after the massacre. As riots unfolded on the streets around them, the artists alternated between painting the just-buried martyrs, and running to the front line to join protests.

To me, this was art and history in the making, the first time I had personally observed graffiti as an art form to reflect reality and record history – and in real time as well.

As I watched the artists paint, a group of young men in black stood in front of a particular mural and began to cry. The mural was of their friend, who had died in Port Said and had just been buried hours before.

The mural not only resonated deeply with these young mourners, but it eventually transformed the whole of Mohamed Mahmoud street into a living museum, as one writer described it, where passersby would regularly stop to have their photos taken in front of the mural and read the names of the martyrs depicted.

The mural, which took artists more than 50 days to complete, has since branched out into pharaonic murals, collages of paint and newspapers showing impoverished Egyptians wrestling with gas cylinders on their backs, and a long serpent carrying the heads of the Scaf.

It also paved the way for the seven-wall project: a collective initiative where street artists tackled the seven concrete walls built by the military to close off all side streets around Tahrir Square, transforming the walls into artistic mirages of rainbows, playgrounds and quiet streets, extending the reality of confined space into a surreal openness.

Tomorrow, a mural by Zeft on Mansour Street, site of bloody clashes in February 2012

What the street artists did was profound and incredible; they visually liberated the neighbourhood of the military’s imposed walls and gave the residents perspective on what life after the walls would look like.

In this sense, I like to think of street art as having the ability to reshape space, reconstruct reality and provide an alternative to the sobering reality we live in.

The past 18 months have been psychologically exhausting to say the least, but street art continues to inspire and motivate Egyptians like myself, not only for the artists’ ideas and messages, but also for the resilience and determination that they demonstrate in continuing to enlighten, protest and educate passersby with their art.

Their weapons versus ours, spotted in Zamalek in early 2011

Om Kalthoum sings ‘Boos El Wawa’ with what I sincerely hope is a ginger beard

A collaboration by Phat2, SDF and Ack

Be with the Revolution, a stencil originally made by Mohamed Gaber in Egypt

This is definitely not meant to be a comprehensive post on all the graffiti in Beirut, nor am I going to pretend that I know what I talk about, because milling around the neighbourhood of Hamra for one day should not make me an expert on graffiti in Beirut [certain journalists, take note; this also applies to Cairo].

This blog post is merely to give you a gist of the graffiti styles and themes that I came across in the Hamra area of the AUB: colourful, pop-culture-influenced, funny and heavy on the sarcasm. It was interesting to see the graffiti of Mohamed Gaber made by Lebanese artists on the walls here; there seems to be a Beirut connection, a theory proven by the recent appearance of the Beirut design of the middle finger as a kaf fatima with ‘KHOZ’ underneath here in Cairo in front of Al Ahly Club.

It was also interesting to see the revered Egyptian singing icon Om Kalthoum on the walls, as well as Hosni Mubarak. Perhaps there is also an Egyptian influence on the Lebanese street art scene, just as I noticed the music of Om Kalthoum and Abdel Halim Hafez played everywhere I went. Solidarity with the Palestinian cause and with social movements was clear, as were the social issues of rape and alcoholism.

Having completely fallen in love with Beirut and its people, I was further intrigued by the city’s graffiti, which included a lot of large scale free-hand graffit as well as these stencils. After all, it’s not every day that you see Hello Kitty as Che Guevara, or ET or an angelic woman with a machine gun, or the phrase ‘forever drunk’. Some of this graffiti has appeared in the book Arabic Graffiti by Done Stone.

Plane dropping parachutes of….

Freehand sighted in Hamra

Stencil of a solidarity movement with the global Occupy campaign?

I like to think of this one as two finger puppets engaged in domestic fights…

while the two kids look on… by PHAT2, SDF and Ack

Wherever I go, Shafik follows me

Badass Hello Kitty by Fawzi Marouk

I could see this on a wall in a contemporary museum

ET chained? No phone home?

Mushroom stencils everywhere…

I love this one; angelic yet sinister and armed

Fairytale like characters

Wake UP and Dream

Shankaboot

Oh look who made an appearance

Triangulated city

I’m right here

Shankaboot

Fight Rape

Always drunk