By: Not Banksy
Fact: people have been writing on walls all throughout history. Graffiti existed even before language did; Cavemen were the first artists to paint on walls. Ancient Romans tagged the sides of buildings in the villages and cities they conquered. As it happens to be, this form of tagging was and still is called graffiti.
Fast-forward to our day and age and it can be noted that graffiti branched into a variety of different classifications. Personally, I’m only concerned with the modern offspring of ‘traditional’ graffiti specifically its artistic aspect.
Having no choice but to be constantly bombarded with the greatest eyesore: “لتشييك مزارعكم” I promised my self to mix it up a bit and spray something decent for once around Amman. I’m only kidding of course! My true motivation stems from being the environmentally concerned type of person I am. I felt the need to communicate something real and relevant, something that directly affects each and everyone of us living in Jordan.
In case you didn’t know it, this year has officially been the driest on record since 1992. Today both short and long-range forecasts do not look promising. With this knowledge I re-appropriated one of Banksy’s graffitis to convey the progressively decreasing amounts of rain Jordan is receiving. For those of you who don’t know Banksy, he is considered to be the most compelling graffiti artist of our time.
And so a couple of weeks ago I whipped up some stencils and with the help of my close friends we managed to spray a decent amount around west Amman, mainly in Abdoun. If anything this image is meant to be raw, challenging and thought provoking in hopes of stimulating interest and dialogue on this vital subject matter.
As I have initially hoped there was a substantial public reaction to this graffiti, however the holistic outcome has exceeded any and all expectations. It is quite unfortunate that the majority of people have failed to grasp the true meaning behind this graffiti along with all the connotations involved. Out of the many false and might I add crazy interpretations I have come across, the most concerning of all, is that of the Jordanian authorities. Furthermore the actions they undertook to ‘resolve’ this matter are unsettling. Sitting here writing this blog post, I am as shocked as I was the first time I learned that this graffiti has been officially interpreted to be symbol for a devil worshiping sect!
It boggles me how such a dramatic and outrageous interpretation could have been made. How could one jump to such a drastic conclusion without considering the intended features of the image first?
The following pictures are the authorities extreme, unnecessary and somewhat delusional response to the graffiti.
Just to point out the abbreviations A.M.K stands for Allah – Mohammad – Kareem
How can anyone take a girl holding an umbrella asking “where is the rain?” to be anything other than what it is; a girl asking why people of the world are destroying our planets’ natural environment to the extent that it is changing our climate?
I can’t help but wonder just how underdeveloped we really are. Are we living in times of witchery to be condemned so brutally? Couldn’t this situation be handled in a more decent and civilized manner? I do acknowledge the fact that graffiti is a form of vandalism. In fact, if you think about it authorities also responded with graffiti, horrible graffiti might I add. The official actions taken just go to show how precious funds, energy and time are being wasted so blatantly. We preach innovation and creativity but the reality of the situation stands before you.
PS. This has not discouraged me.
