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The Emergence of the Mona Lisa Battalions: Graffiti Art Networks in Post-2011 Egypt

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Yakein Abdelmagid*
Affiliation:
Duke University
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Extract

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During and after the January 2011 revolutionary protests, Egypt witnessed the surge and spread of graffi ti and street art activities. The story of graffi ti in Egypt is usually rendered as voices of dissent, modes of symbolic resistance, or expressive force of anger, solidarity, and commemoration. While it is true that the collapse of the state security services and the liberation of public space after the 2011 had fostered the growth of artistic revolutionary expressions, the story of artistic production implies more than politics of cultural representation. Rather, these artistic expressions are usually grounded in the formations, expansions, and contractions of social groups that keep on negotiating their identities, networks, capacities and limitations.

Type
Special Section
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America, Inc. 2013 

References

End Notes

1 Foucault, Michel. “Sex, Power and the Politics of Identity.” In Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth, Paul Rabinow, editor (New York: New Press, 1967), 168.Google Scholar

2 Artists translate the Katāʾib Al Mona Lisa on their formal Facebook page as “Brigades Mona Lisa,” https://www.facebook.com/kta2eb.monalisa.Google Scholar