Egyptian Graffiti and Gender Politics: An Interview with Soraya Morayef

28 March 2013, africaisacountry.com Mickey Mouse is pulling apart a bomb: inside is the torso of George W. Bush, and they’re both looking perfectly happy about the whole thing. Soraya Morayef is taking a photo of the wall where these figures are painted, on a busy street in downtown Cairo, when a man walks up to her and asks her

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Picturing Egypt’s Next President

22 May 2014, The New Yorker By Jonathan Guyer Everybody knows who Egypt’s next President will be. Elections are scheduled for May 26th and 27th, almost a year after Mohamed Morsi was ousted in a coup led by the retired general Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, in what has been painted as a second revolution. With campaigning in overdrive, Sisi met with

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Is Cairene Graffiti Losing Momentum?

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

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Arab Comics: Fit for Academic Exploration

Soraya Morayef / 18 Nov 2014 Comic magazines Samir, Lulu and Mickey Geeb (Pocket-sized Mickey) and Arabic translations of Tintin, Superman and Asterix and Obelix have been read and loved by generations of Arabs. Editorial cartoons are fundamental parts of every daily newspaper. But comic art remains an often unexamined and under-supported part of Arab artistic effort. A new initiative is intent on changing that. In September, the American

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Egypt’s Long History of Activist Artists

By: Sultan Al Qassemi 31 October 2014 Egyptian artists were deeply involved in spearheading, capturing, and influencing the January 2011 uprising. In fact, the artistic community lost one of its own when 32-year-old Ahmed Bassiouny died in the early days of the uprising while taking part in the protests. For four days, the contemporary digital artist and experimental musician documented the protests in

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The Case of the Arabic Noirs

  August 20, 2014 | by Jonathan Guyer Cairo: the metal detector beeps. The security man wears a crisp white uniform. He nods and leans back in his chair. The lobby’s red oriental carpet, so worn it’s barely red, leads upstairs to the hotel tavern. Enter the glass doors, where a cat in a smart bow tie and vest reaches for a lonely

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