A project of peace, painted across 50 buildings | eL Seed

124,516 views ・ 2016-08-25

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So when I decided to create an art piece in Manshiyat Naser,
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the neighborhood of the Cairo garbage collectors in Egypt,
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I never thought this project would be
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the most amazing human experience that I would ever live.
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As an artist, I had this humanist intention
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of beautifying a poor and neglected neighborhood
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by bringing art to it and hopefully shining light on this isolated community.
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The first time I heard about this Christian Coptic community
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was in 2009 when the Egyptian authorities under the regime of Hosni Mubarak
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decided to slaughter 300,000 pigs using the pretext of H1N1 virus.
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Originally, they are pig breeders.
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Their pigs and other animals are fed with the organic waste
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that they collect on a daily basis.
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This event killed their livelihood.
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The first time I entered Manshiyat Naser, it felt like a maze.
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I was looking for the St. Simon Monastery on the top of the Muqattam Mountain.
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So you go right, then straight, then right again, then left
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to reach all the way to the top.
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But to reach there, you must dodge between the trucks overpacked with garbage
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and slalom between the tuk-tuks,
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the fastest vehicle to move around in the neighborhood.
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The smell of the garbage unloaded from those trucks was intense,
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and the noise of the traffic was loud and overbearing.
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Add to it the din created by the crushers in those warehouses along the way.
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From outside it looks chaotic, but everything is perfectly organized.
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The Zaraeeb, that’s how they call themselves,
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which means the pig breeders,
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have been collecting the garbage of Cairo
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and sorting it in their own neighborhood for decades.
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They have developed one of the most efficient
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and highly profitable systems on a global level.
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Still, the place is perceived as dirty, marginalized and segregated
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because of their association with the trash.
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So my initial idea was to create an anamorphic piece,
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a piece that you can only see from one vantage point.
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I wanted to challenge myself artistically by painting over several buildings
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and having it only fully visible from one point on the Muqattam Mountain.
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The Muqattam Mountain is the pride of the community.
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This is where they built the St. Simon Monastery,
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a 10,000-seat cave church that they carved into the mountain itself.
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So, the first time I stood on top of the mountain
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and I looked at the neighborhood,
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I asked myself, how on earth will I convince all those owners
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to let me paint on their buildings?
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And then Magd came.
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Magd is a guide from the Church.
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He told me the only person I needed to convince was Father Samaan,
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who is the leader of the community.
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But to convince Father Samaan, I needed to convince Mario,
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who is a Polish artist who moved to Cairo 20 years ago
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and who created all the artwork of the Cave Church.
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I am really grateful to Mario. He was the key of the project.
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He managed to get me a meeting with Father Samaan,
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and surprisingly, he loved the idea.
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He asked me about where I painted before
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and how I will make it happen.
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And he was mainly concerned by what I was going to write.
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In every work that I create, I write messages
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with my style of Arabic calligraphy.
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I make sure those messages are relevant to the place where I am painting
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but have this universal dimension,
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so anybody around the world can relate to it.
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So for Manshiyat Naser,
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I decided to write in Arabic the words of St. Athanasius of Alexandria,
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a Coptic bishop from the third century,
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who said: (Arabic),
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which means in English,
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"Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly
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needs to wipe his eyes first."
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It was really important for me
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that the community felt connected to the words.
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And for me this quote was perfectly reflecting the spirit of the project.
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So Father Samaan blessed the project,
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and his approval brought all the residents on board.
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Hundreds of liters of paint, a dozen blue manual lifts,
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several trips back and forth to Cairo,
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a strong and solid team from France, North Africa, Middle East and the US,
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and after a year of planning and logistics, there we are,
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my team and some members from the local community
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creating a piece that will spread over 50 buildings,
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some filling up the space of the calligraphy
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that I trace with colors.
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Here some blue, there some yellow, there some orange.
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Some others carrying some sand bags
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and putting them on the top of the buildings
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to hold those manual lifts,
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and some others assembling and disassembling those same lifts
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and moving them around the different buildings.
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At the beginning of the project,
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I numbered all those buildings on my sketch,
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and there was no real interaction with the community.
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People didn’t get the point of all this.
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But fast enough, those building numbers became family names.
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The first building was the house of Uncle Ibrahim.
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Uncle Ibrahim is such an enthusiastic person.
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He was always singing and making jokes,
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and his daughters and sons saved me from his bull
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who wanted to attack me on the fourth floor.
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(Laughter)
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Actually, the bull saw me from the window and came out on the balcony.
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(Laughter)
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Yeah.
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Uncle Ibrahim was always hanging out on the balcony
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and talking to me while I was painting.
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I remember him saying that he didn’t go to the mountain for 10 years,
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and that he never takes a day off.
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He said that if he stopped working, who will stop the garbage?
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But surprisingly, at the end of the project,
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he came all the way to the mountain to look at the piece.
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He was really proud to see his house painted,
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and he said that this project was a project of peace and --
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sorry --
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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He said that it was a project of peace and unity
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and that it brought people together.
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So his perception towards the project changed,
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and my perception towards the community changed also,
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and towards what they do.
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All the garbage that everybody is disgusted by is not theirs.
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They just work out of it.
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Actually, they don’t live in the garbage. They live from the garbage.
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So I started doubting myself and wondering
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what was the real purpose of this whole project?
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It was not about beautifying a place by bringing art to it.
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It was about switching perception and opening a dialogue
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on the connection that we have with communities that we don’t know.
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So day after day,
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the calligraphy circle was taking shape,
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and we were always excited to go back on the mountain to look at the piece.
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And standing exactly at this point every day made my realize
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the symbolism behind this anamorphic piece.
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If you want to see the real image of somebody,
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maybe you should change your angle.
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There was doubts and difficulties,
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like fears and stress.
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It wasn't simple to work in such environments,
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sometimes having pigs under you while you paint
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or climbing a stack of garbage to reach a lift.
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But we all got over the fear of the heights, the swinging lifts,
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the strength of the smell
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and also the stress of not finishing on time.
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But the kindness of all those people made us forget everything.
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The building number 3 was the house of Uncle Bakheet and Aunty Fareeda.
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In Egyptian, they have this expression that says, "Ahsen Nas,"
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which means "the best people."
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They were the best people.
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We used to take our break in front of their houses,
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and all the kids of the neighborhood
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used to join us.
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I was impressed and amazed by the kids of Manshiyat Naser.
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For the first few days, they were always refusing anything we were offering them,
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even a snack or a drink.
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So I asked Aunty Fareeda, "Why is that?"
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And she told me they teach their kids to refuse anything
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from somebody that they don't know
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because maybe this person needs it more than they do.
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So at this exact point I realized actually
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the Zaraeeb community was the ideal context
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to raise the topic of perception.
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We need to question our level of misconception
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and judgment we can have as a society
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upon communities based on their differences.
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I remember how we got delayed on Uncle Ibrahim's house
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when his pigs that are bred on the rooftop
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were eating the sand bags that hold the lifts.
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(Laughter)
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The house of Uncle Bakheet and Aunty Fareeda
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was this kind of meeting point.
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Everybody used to gather there.
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I think this is what Uncle Ibrahim meant
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when he said that was a project of peace and unity,
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because I really felt that people were coming together.
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Everyone was greeting us with a smile, offering us a drink
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or inviting us into their own house for lunch.
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Sometime, you are at the first level of a building,
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and somebody opens his window and offers you some tea.
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And then the same thing happens on the second floor.
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And you keep going all the way to the top.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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I think I never drink as much tea as I did in Egypt.
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(Laughter)
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And to be honest with you, we could have finished earlier,
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but I think it took us three weeks because of all those tea breaks.
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(Laughter)
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In Egypt, they have another expression, which is "Nawartouna,"
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which means, "You brought light to us."
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In Manshiyat Naser they were always telling us this.
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The calligraphy, actually --
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I used a white glow-in-the-dark paint for the calligraphy
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so at the end of the project, we rented some black light projectors
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and lit up the whole neighborhood,
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surprising everybody around.
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We wanted to tell them
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that they are the ones who brought light to us.
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(Applause)
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The Zaraeeb community are strong, honest, hard workers,
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and they know their value.
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The people of Cairo call them "the Zabaleen,"
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which means "the people of the garbage,"
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but ironically, the people of Manshiyat Naser
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call the people of Cairo the Zabaleen.
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They say, they are the ones who produce the garbage, not them.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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The goal was to leave something to this community,
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but I feel that they are the ones who left something in our lives.
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You know, the art project was just a pretext
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for this amazing human experience.
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The art piece at some point will disappear, vanish,
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and actually there is somebody who is building a second floor
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in front of Uncle Ibrahim's house,
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so it's covering part of the painting,
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so I might need to go back and paint over it.
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(Laughter)
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It was about the experience,
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about the story,
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about the moment.
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From the streets of the neighborhood,
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the painting appears in fragments,
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isolated from one another,
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standing alone.
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But connected with the sign of calligraphy
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that today reveals the powerful message that we should all think about
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before we want to judge somebody.
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Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly
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needs to wipe his eyes first.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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