Revolutionary Street Art : Complicating the Discourse

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  • Three Travelling Plaques Become Four in Mohamed Mahmoud Street
    http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18471/three-travelling-plaques-become-four-in-mohamed-ma

    Not only are the travelling plaques striking, reminding us of the constantly multiplying numbers of martyrs, but they also symbolize the dynamic making of a collective memory. The display of English translations from the holy texts of the three monotheistic religions reveals an urgent desire to communicate universally about martyrdom, mourning, and perhaps about incomplete revolutions. Today, the pessimists argue that the martyrs, massacres and dramatic confrontations of the past three years have been forgotten, and that the deep state remains untouched. Yet as Mohamed Mahmoud Street’s stories show, Egypt has witnessed a palpable qualitative transformation in the public sphere and culture since 2011. It may be fragile, and hosts paradoxes and contradictions at times, but it continues its resistance.

    Mona Abaza sur la rue Mohamed Mahmoud. Moins sur les inévitables graffitis que sur les pratiques de commémoration et la vie qu’abrite cette galerie à ciel ouvert au sein d’un Caire où l’ordre, al amn et al istiqrar, les deux mots magiques de l’Etat militaire sont bien en place. La rue MM est bizarrement un reliquat « révolutionnaire » autorisé dans tout ça. Musée (ou cimetière diraient nos amis futuristes) d’une révolution qui a mal vieilli.