Caramblogage

There is an Egyptian phrase called kalaam faregh. Translated, it means ‘empty talk’. One of the main reasons for my return was to discover the new culture scene in Cairo I had been hearing so much about from Germany. Over the year, I had attended, organised and participated in many events in Berlin related to the new voice that the Egyptian people had found. However, after a year of talking and spectating, I felt that much of what I was saying was repeating what I had picked up from the internet or other people without an opinion of my own about them. In other words, kalam faregh. Luckily, my talk was about to become filled, in some fashion and I was about to farragh some new kalaam. Farragh has another meaning. One of my main interests in ongoing Cairo has been the street art scene. Or graffiti scene. In pythonesque manner, a war of walls has erupted. The factions involved in the ongoing democratic process have revived a long tradition of leaving your mark whereve...

Coming back to Egypt was almost an accident this time around. Not having visited the country in the last three years, my last memory of Egypt was of a magical evening on a white beach in Sinai, with many friends, music singing and laughter.  The magic I was to encounter this time was of a darker nature. Arriving on the 28th of February, fresh and cold from Mad Graffiti Week Berlin, I landed in a city full of new opinions, anger and hopes. These are to be encountered both on the walls of Cairo and in verbal formats.  From the air, not much seemed to have changed in the country: Egyptair still flies to Cairo from Berlin without stops, you still have to fill out the immigration form with Nefertitis head on it before entering the country and the pursers jovial presentation of Cairo from above still reminded me of bad childrens TV.  The plane landed, the passengers disembarked, collected their luggage and passed customs. Again, although this was a new ai...

So yes, I am in Egypt. I had hoped to write few posts, beginning with how air you breathe has changed and how you notice it the moment you leave the airport and a new abundance of hope. The latest shift in the wind, caused by the killing of about 75 people after a football game, has me writing about fear instead. There are be those who will try to crush hope through fear. The dominant undercurrent of many conversations has been fear. I have heard of violence, murders, kidnappings, bank robberies. People have spoken of how thing were safer under the old regime, of how such things used not to happen. Which is true, in part. Maybe they were not covered before. Maybe there was a police force in place, who,  matter how ineffective, corrupt and undertrained, did keep some measure of land order in place. Maybe things were better. But why did they get worse? Let's go back couple of weeks. The emergency law was lifted, a piece of very good news. With a single caveat. In case of thug...

The Echo and the Origin. One of the reasons Mad Graffiti Week in Berlin is a good idea is the inspirational value of of a good bombfest. Slightly edgy, just a bit illegal, it allows Egyptian artists living in Berlin to finally join in where they have been missing out and bring their work where they feel it belongs- into the public space. This comes back to a slogan that I hear every now and then "Reclaim your City". Cut off from home and with no possibility of immediate return, many who live here feel useless and it is important to be able to take direct action in what is a volatile and sensitive time in the Egyptian uprising. It is important to be able to create your own space, your own personal piece of revolution abroad. It is about leaving a lasting impression on your surroundings and feel that you have done your bit. Most of the visual artists I know in Berlin would go to demonstrations and silently hold up a slogan, or a piece of artwork, feeling that written wor...

Hello and welcome back to the bilingual design section of this blog. And to Mad Graffiti Week, Berlin as well. In these very political weeks of graffiti, the message is more or less everything. In order to convey and sometimes adapt the message so that it can be understood or adapted to the local lingo. OMU in German means Original mit Untertiteln, which means subtitled version. Trouvé sur les rues de Berlin

One of the Grassroots Projects from Egypt that I think needs to be mentioned and supported is the 7'alti Feloul Campaign.  Aimed squarely at giving individual citizens the tools to spread awareness to the Remnants (Feloul) who still support the NDP/ Mubarak regime, through videos documenting the misdeeds of said system. I was asked, almost by accident, to develop a logo for them. In Berlin, with Hanaa el Degham, we came up with a couple of ideas, documented below.

Page one of Sing! In Arabic…  All you lovely Arabic editors out there: Please correct, my written is awful.