Assembling a Revolution: Graffiti, Cairo and the Arab Spring
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
This essay examines the ways revolutionary desire was articulated and interpreted through graffiti in Cairo, Egypt during the Arab Spring and its immediate aftermath. For writers in Cairo, graffiti was one of many in a constellation of resistances that undermined everyday life in Hosni Mubarak’s Egypt and the SCAF-controlled interim government. Ordinary surfaces of the city were illegally marked, displaying revolutionary potentiality by allowing the seemingly powerless rhetorical openings of engagement. Far from being a monolithic discourse, graffiti created geographies of material protest that were locally enacted but globally contextualized. Political graffiti, like the overall protests of the Arab Spring, emerged in large numbers at particular moments, but its numerous roots spread distinctly into the past. First contextualizing Cairo graffiti as a tool for revolutionary protest, the article then examines specific writers (Mahmoud Graffiti, Ganzeer), particular ‘battleground' spaces (Tahrir Square, Mohamed Mahmoud Street), different graffiti mutations (tags, pieces, murals) and contrary aesthetic manipulations of the form (‘No Walls’ campaign, graffiti advertisements by multinational corporations) in order to assemble a graffiti scene in Cairo as it follows the ebbs and flows of revolutionary desire.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
a) Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed undera Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share and adapt the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
b) Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
c) Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Open Access Citation Advantage Service). Where authors include such a work in an institutional repository or on their website (ie. a copy of a work which has been published in a UTS ePRESS journal, or a pre-print or post-print version of that work), we request that they include a statement that acknowledges the UTS ePRESS publication including the name of the journal, the volume number and a web-link to the journal item.
d) Authors should be aware that the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) License permits readers to share (copy and redistribute the work in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the work) for any purpose, even commercially, provided they also give appropriate credit to the work, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. They may do these things in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests you or your publisher endorses their use.