My memory took me back to the age of five; I was at the neighbors' house that day, looking at their clean and shiny wall, with lipstick next to me. I don't know why I immediately grabbed that lipstick and scribbled on the wall, drawing on the wall lines and heads with big eyes inside. I don't know why I did it, and what prompted me, but it seems to have been a hobby instilled in me since childhood. I still remember the scolding of me by our neighbor, who decided to expel me from her house.
This was my beginning in drawing, in that first period of my hobby, I would steal chalk from my father's bag and draw on the walls of the house, and snatched his pens and notebooks and colored them. That was the first language I practiced. At that time, no school accepted my admission to it because I wasn’t able to speak yet. I stuttered until after seven, and in fact I had another language to practice and communicate with.
Art is a political beginning
In 2011, Yemen launched a wave of peaceful protests to change the existing political system. The streets of Yemeni cities were revolting against an authority that drew large borders and high barriers between it and the citizens who live their daily lives in limited ways. However, with the "Arab Spring", people took to the streets and broke the "taboo" related to street marches. It was a peaceful popular wave that made society abandon weapons and go out into the street, expressing its protest and demands in an unexpected peaceful and civilized manner, especially by a repressed society within a very narrow geography.
The first wall
On the fifth of March 2012, the artist, Murad Subai', called everyone to go out; To share his colors and paint with him on the city walls. Murad chose a wall on Kentucky round in Sana'a, the area between two streets; One calls for the downfall of the regime, and the other supports the regime. Meanwhile, as I passed through the street in the early weeks of the campaign, I realized how these colors gave freedom and beauty to the walls and streets. As a result, I decided to participate in the campaign, and I went back to my father’s library and started browsing art magazines and books. For the first time in my life, I drew a “sketch” of aesthetic and expressive paintings. Then I went out for the promised day to paint, and for the first time, to stand facing a wall that was deformed and dead like an actor’s corpse. My mission was to breathe life into the same wall and to create it anew in an aesthetic and artistic way.
As I arrival to the place, I was surprised that I am at a large carnival of color in the street, passers-by look in astonishment, and shyly take the brushes and colors and paint the walls, young men and women, children and others. In short, all groups of society were present, and I am one of them; A shy and introverted young man at the age of sixteen, a young man who has not participated in any social activity before, and has not participated in any political movement here or there. I was very happy that day; because I didn't miss the opportunity. Meanwhile, my real and fateful mission began in the street, my revolution had already begun.
Street art campaigns continued, accompanying the political transformations in Yemen. We did not all know at the time that these campaigns are the feature that the youth revolution has taken to continue peaceful protest, every time to go out with painting in the street, breathe life into the dead walls, to revive these places, and become places of flow, and people can go about their daily lives more freely, and a space to express street politics. Street vendors and passers-by, beggars from the marginalized strata of society, and daily wage-laborers were flowing in and participating with us in drawing, and some of them who did not have time to participate with us, offered us to contribute in other ways, and we were surprised by one of them bringing us paint barrels, or entering his hand into his pocket and grabbed some money as a contribution, and others were giving us water bottles. These campaigns have emphasized the absence of differences between people and diverse groups, and made everyone identical in characteristics, to express their hopes and belief in diversity and coexistence to create a new civil society. The authorities did not dare to stop the art campaigns, or to blur the murals, and this is one of the things that is really striking.
The Murals of the forcibly disappeared
In the “Walls Remember Their Faces” campaign, which adopted the issue of the forcibly disappeared, the faces of the forcibly disappeared were drawn in broad daylight and blurred at night, and in one of the walls it was not possible to blur the faces, so it was sufficient to blur the eyes of the disappeared who were staring strongly at the accused of their crimes. This campaign, in which many individuals and families of the forcibly disappeared victims took part, went out to the streets and raised pictures of their relatives who had disappeared during the past four decades for political reasons. The case has been kept secret, and anyone who tries to write about it is repressed, let alone those who go out to the street to draw the faces of 102 forcibly disappeared persons, and it has stopped to this point for coercive reasons as well. This campaign provoked the street and newspapers to support it, and was included within the Comprehensive National Dialogue in 2013 agenda within the file of transitional justice.
The eager society
At first, we didn't run these campaigns in a smooth way at all; When we went out to paint, society was trying to stand against art; During the past political decades, and as a result of the alliance between the authority of politics and religion, the perceptions of the prohibition of art were highlighted, and all its subjects and sections were banned in schools and universities; This directed society towards contempt for the artist and the prohibition of painting. Therefore, street art campaigns not only maintained peaceful protest through painting, but also broke the “taboo” towards artistic practices in the street, and also broke the “taboo” towards art, and strengthened the trust in the general community towards art; It is a human act that has a lively conscience towards their problems and daily life, and it opposes anything that stands in their civic horizon.
Street Caricature
In December 2012, I went out to launch my first artistic campaign entitled "Street Caricature" to bring caricatures from the depth of newspapers and magazines to the walls of the streets that people read every day. It coincided with the campaign of the artist Murad Subai', "Walls Remember Their Faces", and I painted on the street, accompanied by several artists, adopting a caricature style that does not contain dialogue or phrases. These drawings were stopping passers-by, even illiterate ones. And because it was launched after two major campaigns, it made me realize the amount of awareness that people gained towards art, not only that, but people were stopping us, explaining the works to us, and giving us their valuable artistic notes about our works. This reveals the extent to which society is more conscious of art and politics than of the elites.
Sharing colors
In 2012, Murad launched the first art campaign in the streets of the capital, Sana'a, called " Color Your Street Walls". This campaign aimed to remove the hate slogans that spread earlier in the "Arab Spring Revolution" and replace them with paintings on the walls. The campaign enhanced people’s social awareness of the importance of art and a culture of peace and diversity, so that artists and activists would go out to paint in the street and give color to passersby and spectators; to participate in drawing peace, culture and diversity.
After that, several artistic campaigns took place, most notably “Walls Remember Their Faces” and “12 Hours.” After the armed confrontations in the capital, Sana’a, the murals campaigns continued, and several campaigns were implemented, including: “An Open Book” campaign, “Wreckage” and “Silent Victims.” and "fragments".
These works of art, in general, expressed the suffering of people from war, and expressed the voices of the slain victims everywhere, and they are works of art that call for peace and a culture of diversity. Artworks in public places reached all people, and enhanced their awareness of the need for conflict resolution and peace building.
There is no doubt that Yemen has become an arena of war, hunger, disease, hatred, violence and death, but street art reflects an anti-war image, reflecting the hope of the Yemeni society looking for peace and security. Street art proves that everything that happens is just variables that are not fixed. Street art in Yemen is a civic demonstration and a social practice that reflects the real demands and visions of the community. This art is not separated or alienated from its community, but is the civil image of it; When there is a suppression of this activity, it is similar to the suppression of a popular demonstration.
Conclusion
In Yemen, the true picture that expresses the concerns of the society has been absent. The war is nothing but an illusion that made us see Yemen as a strange country that we do not really see. Street art has highlighted the true image of society by engaging society in painting, and stopping this art is a part of war; aimed to silent the truth and hide the real public vision.
And believe me, peace will come one day, Yemenis will return to their civic practices, and fine art and graffiti will become a hobby for all generations to come.
