WIAM EL-TAMAMI 28 JANUARY 2015 I left Cairo on 19 April 2014. I was so glad to have left, so relieved and slightly disbelieving that I had finally loosened myself from the grip of Al-Qaahira – in Arabic the name, quite fittingly, means ‘The Oppressor’, ‘The Crusher’, ‘The Vanquisheress’.
I knew that I could not be there then, but that I was inextricably bound to her: I could, I would, always come back.
[Late graffiti artist Hisham Rizq, killed in July 2014, painted by Ammar Abu Bakr. Captured 12 September 2014]By Mona Abaza, 25 January 2015 Clearly Cairene graffiti has lost momentum during this year. Having been the faithful barometer of the revolution over the past three years, graffiti has recently faced transmutations and drawbacks that run parallel with the political process of restoring “order” in the street. The heartbreaking story of the recent death of a cheerful and bright young graffiti artist, nineteen-year-old Hisham Rizq, completes this sad picture.
