My name is Amr Nazeer. I am 25 years old and I approve of this interview and recording.

• When did you start drawing Graffiti?

October 2010 with a cousin who is in 6th of April Youth Movement. They wanted to make stencils and I helped them do it.

 

• Did you draw anything during the 25th of January’s revolution?

I did nothing during this period. Then, in March, I started drawing things after I got denied from entering Jordan. When I came back, I started questioning why this is happening to us, and I realized that all the problems we are in now, has something to do with Israel. Resistance shouldn’t be in Egypt only but everywhere, serving the same purpose and that is to cause the failure of this entity. That is because the presence of Israel in the region is the reason behind our and the whole world’s problems. There is nothing called a revolution in Egypt. In order for Egypt to be set free, we must first start with the United States of America. We must first shake the utmost problem. The first figure of resistance against Israel was Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Thus, I decided that the first thing I will draw is Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

 

• In your opinion, what are the differences between Graffiti before, during and after the revolution?

In my opinion, the only things that were drawn before the revolution were the graffiti of Aya Tarek. She might say that her graffiti is not political, but the way I see it is that everything is political as long as it expresses an opinion. She is advocating for women in her drawings. The fact that a girl rolls up her sleeves, does onto the streets and draws is political because she breaks a lot of taboos in our society. During the revolution, there was no time for us to think and come up with an idea that would look nice. Thus, what normally happened were the stores sold sprays with a higher price and that was because the only thing that was stopping you from drawing, and that was the police, suddenly wasn’t there. It was an open invitation that anyone could write anything. Mostly, people took their sprays and wrote on the walls. It was beautiful to walk down the streets and find curse words around you everywhere. It was amazing to find an average man cursing the big taboo on the walls. For me, it was so enjoyable to see all the scrabbles on the walls. These scrabbles do not bother me at all as people are expressing themselves. We are a repressed nation and I would never say that what’s on these walls is nonsense. The whole thing is relative. When you like or dislike something written on the walls, in the end it is only your opinion and people may disagree with you. I don’t care about the people who say that graffiti damages the walls because the purpose of graffiti is to bring down the regime. So, this cannot be done with politeness

 

• Do you think graffiti in Egypt could have a future that is not political?

Of course. The revolution was the trigger for people to draw graffiti. That is why everything now serves the purpose of the revolution. However, as time passes, new generations will come and find walls to draw on and the topics they will cover will not necessarily be about the revolution because they haven’t seen it. Also, the notion of public space has started in Egypt. You are now able to get a legal statement in order to draw graffiti. There is a difference between graffiti and public space.

 

• What was your favorite piece of graffiti?

The best thing was the smiley face. Zeftawy came up with this idea so we could do it on the wall of Asr El Eini. For me, this works as an example of a person that reacts according to the events happening. At this time, graffiti was triggered by the events. We did not sit in our homes and think of wonderful ideas for graffiti. It happened in the spur of the moment and that is the spirit I liked about Zeftawy. He was so angry at what was happening and came up with the idea of drawing a smiley face on the wall. We made it the two days after he came up with the idea. It might not be the most artistic thing I have seen in Egypt, but it is something real and genuine.

 

• And how did you feel like while doing it?

I felt so happy. I felt like I left my mark and scarred the authority.