A revolution is not an event, it’s a process
Egyptian-Lebanese artist and activist Bahia Shehab paints contemporary Arabic poetry in cities around the globe, sending a message of hope to silenced revolutionaries of the Arab Spring.
Bahia Shehab never imagined she would be a street artist. “I’m a scholar and a historian and a researcher and an artist,” she said. “I never thought I would be an activist.” But sure enough, during the 2011 revolution in Egypt, Shehab found herself on the streets of Cairo expressing her anger at an oppressive government in the form of graffiti. Using spray paint and stencils, she emblazoned messages of protest on city walls, employing a variety of Arabic characters for the word “no” gathered from Islamic cultures all over the world — including Spain, Afghanistan, Iran and China.
“No to military rule,” said her posts. “No to dictators.” “No to stripping the people.” “No to beating women.”
Now, six years later, Egypt is once again under military rule, street expression is no longer tolerated in Cairo, and thousands of journalists and activists are reported to be behind bars. Not surprisingly, the streets are quiet. “During the revolution, I and many, many other artists and activists were simply translating the emotions of the Egyptian people. We formed a kind of a link, and were part of a much bigger cycle,” says Shehab. “But now we have a government that’s very aggressive about opposition. Without the millions of people on the streets, the energy for protest has dissipated. But we still want change. And to keep driving change, some of us have to keep working, even though our numbers are now much smaller than before.”
This is why Shehab is taking her message to walls further afield. Today, rather than acting as a street activist protesting a government, she’s a global envoy of hope for change. Instead of spraying the word “no,” she’s celebrating the work of Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish — a contemporary poet whose work, says Shehab, best resonates with the predicament of today’s Arab youth.
“Darwish, who lived from 1941 to 2008, is a very famous Palestinian poet who summarized in his poetry the suffering and aspirations of Arab nations,” she says. “I feel that his work is very relevant to Arab youth around the world, as well as within the Arab world. With very simple words he communicated ideas about dignity, hope, pride, self respect, change—and most importantly believing in and fighting for your dreams.”
Shehab’s Arabic characters are made up of unusual geometric designs that aren’t readily recognizable as Arabic script, pushing the boundaries of tradition and evolving visual language — in part, a visual metaphor for evolving Arabic culture. “The question I’m asking myself: How to create a new, modern Arabic visual identity?” says Shehab. “Every mural I make is an attempt at creating a new visual solution for Arabic typography. Arabic as a script has been confined to the old and classical representation by master calligraphers. As an artist and designer, I see it as my responsibility to help Arabic realize its full expressive potential. This includes experimenting with abstract forms and geometric shapes.”
What does this mean for legibility? “Sometimes my work is legible, and sometimes it’s not. I don’t think legibility is important,” says Shehab. “If you know the poet, then you all you have to know is the first couple of words and then you’ll know the stanzas. The quotes I use are famous; they are part of the collective Arab culture.”
So far, Shehab has taken the project to Vancouver, New York, Madison, Marrakesh, Tokyo, Istanbul, Cephalonia, Beirut and Amsterdam—but her audience is not the residents of those cities so much as Arab communities around the world. “With the internet, we don’t have any more borders — any wall is my wall, and any city is my city. I consider myself a global citizen, so I can paint my message anywhere. All I have to do is post a photo online for anybody to see it.”
“But of course, what I leave with are the human connections that I make with the people of that city. In the process of painting walls, I learn about their culture, they learn about mine — these are the bridges we build as human beings,” says Shehab. “People are discriminated against, people who are suffering from oppressive regimes — such people exist everywhere around the world.”
And what of her home country? What next? Has Shehab lost hope that the 2011 uprising had any beneficial effect? “What happened was historic and monumental. It inspired so many other revolutions around the world,” she says. “So it will have an impact on our own society. When? I’m not sure. But the teenagers chanting on the streets in 2011, who were then 14 and 15—soon they will be in their 20s, working, contributing to society in their own way.”
“I remember one of the slogans in the revolution was, ‘Thank you, you’ve made us come together,’” says Shehab. “So those of us who want to keep working for change will find each other and connect — and we must, because you can’t do this alone. But we have a lot of work, and it will take time. As the Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef said, ‘A revolution is not an event, it’s a process.’ We’re in the process, hopefully.”
The TED Fellows program hand-picks young innovators from around the world to raise international awareness of their work and maximize their impact.
