Cairobserver — Beyond icons: graffiti, anonymous authors, and the messages on Cairo’s walls
▻http://cairobserver.com/post/68890839257/beyond-icons-graffiti-anonymous-authors-and-the
Notwithstanding the continual attempts to remove graffiti, the city bears these messages, and neighborhoods and streets become defined by the graffiti that has been written on their walls. Walking through Cairo, one can assemble a different geography not found on any maps, learning where protests pass through (and who made up these protests), the streets that families of martyrs live on, which ultras are represented in which neighborhoods, the voting habits of different neighborhoods, and even the political orientations and disputes between neighbors and opinions. Putting this up on the walls, in the city, makes these social relationships and messages durable, lasting, and extend beyond the private interactions between a speaker and listener. The result of this is a city that becomes more public, as strangers are forced to interact not only face to face, but with the remnants and imprints of these others on the walls. We are confronted by strangers and strangers’ messages on the walls, and we are likewise free (if not legally allowed) to contribute to these debates, to mark the city and its walls and add to this geography of strangers and their speech, building the city through these messages.