THE DYNAMIC OF RESISTANCE 1. ACTORS IN DIALOGUE

As was shown above, each actor had his own tools of intervention in the street;

graffiti painters, authorities and pedestrians. Out of this situation, different forms of dialogue emerged. First, there was direct conversation between artists and people in the street; “It created a dialogue. People stop and ask us while drawing ‘what do you mean by this’ and a dialogue starts. And this is more important than the painting itself” (NR, a 25-year-old male director in a media company).

Second, the content of the image on the wall communicates. The graffiti in Fig. 8 is a good example of dialogue through the wall. One of the graffiti painters explained what he meant by it:

There were clashes on both sides of the wall: from the smiley face side, there were protesters, and from the other side, there were interior ministry forces. Stones and gas exchange from both sides and I am standing by the wall in the middle drawing a smiley face! (...) For me it meant, “you kill, we smile” We will not vanish and if the best you can do is to resist me by a bullet, then this smiley face is to tell you “show me the best you have got” (EZ, a 24-year-old male engineer).

Figure X-8 Barricade Wall (Photo Credit: Amru Salahuddien)

Third, dialogue emerged from different actors changing the object on the wall. From one side the graffiti artists paint, then local authorities erase, and then painters paint again on the wall adding sarcastic statements such as “Congratulations on the new paint” or “Erase again and I will paint again”. Pedestrians also had their additions to graffiti, adding their own signs in the graffiti pieces and erasing what they did not agree with. For example, the message of the graffiti in Fig. 9 changed over time as the artist initially wrote: “I am among those who died a year ago and the killer was never prosecuted”. A year later the word “a year ago” was replaced by “two years ago”, then it was altered further by a pedestrian to “three years ago” expressing the continuity of the lack of justice.

Figure 9 “I am among those who died a year ago and the killer was never prosecuted”

(Photo Credit: Graffiti Artist Nazeer)

In spite of the tension of this dialogue and its temporality, some artists seem keen on keeping this form of dialogue seeing it as a democratic process giving agency to each of the actors and creating social change:

...but people living in the neighbourhood sometimes erase too (...) who knows why. But I really like it when people take off my pieces. It is a very democratic process. I am doing it in the area where you live and you have the freedom to erase it just like I had the freedom to put it. It means I moved something in them so badly that they decided to erase it. I touched upon that anger. Maybe it made them think. It is a tool of dialogue between the artist and the masses in the most democratic form since the observer has the right to erase it. Which in reality is the first step in change since this will only happen through visual conversation, friction and provoking ideas, challenging stereotypes and a leap into the grey area (KZ, a male full time graffiti artist).

4.7.2. CONTINUITY AND TRANSFORMATION

Revolution graffiti in Egypt, though constrained by the government’s increased control and resistance, continues in different forms. Groups of graffiti painters have been flexible and creative in finding ways to reach the public through the streets.

This can be seen in the use of quick ready-made stencils to spray onto the walls and

posters, instead of larger time-consuming paintings, that would increase their chances in getting caught by security forces.

Different projects have also emerged from graffiti. As MR explains, political messages are harder to communicate under the tightened security situation; so he decided with his group to do paintings for street vendors in Tahrir Square area that he hopes will build connection with the public there and change their views about graffiti into something useful that serves the people. Also, NR initiated “walls of corruption” project which uses only colours on certain walls to draw attention to the corruption behind them, such as walls hiding prison areas: “The idea of ‘colouring through corruption’ is to only do colouring with no text. Colour corrupted places. It is not an explicit message, because if it is direct and explicit they will stop us, but when we only colour police come and stand with us”.

This continuity is giving all actors time to strategize and adapt to new ways of resistance:

Security forces were following the revolution and learning from it just like we were. So we both built expertise. So they know if they arrest me, for example, I will get support from other artists and get drawn. We were stronger than them. There was a limit they couldn't transcend. But now we are weaker and lost control. So now when we draw, they will see us and arrest us. In the beginning I would have an idea I would go do it right away whether alone or with a group. Now we could spend days thinking of how to implement something so fast that we don’t get caught (MR, a 23-year-old male programmer).