Patricia Barakat - El Asmar

Reactive Political Graffiti: Beirut, People Unite for "The Truth" Patricia Barakat - El Asmar

February 14, 2005, a day to remember for the Lebanese. Prime Minister Rafik Hariri was assassinated in a car explosion in Beirut (Lebanon). Along with mass demonstrations and other reactions of the people was yet another unique way to protest, this being to write graffiti on the walls of Martyrs? Square in Beirut. A collection of 455 photographs of graffiti were taken between February 24, 2005 and May 29, 2005. The work analyses and presents an interpretation of the peoples? communication of worries, desires, political interests, frustrations, and taboos through the study of graffiti at a particular time of history and selected place applying social-cultural research and dialogic approach. Twenty months later a website was developed offering a forum for graffiti makers to express their opinions on a virtual wall emulating the walls in Martyrs? Square. Is the place, the writer, and time as important as the graffiti itself? Graffiti?s engaging energy allows designers, artists, and researchers in the visual communication field to glimpse masses social and cultural reactions at their most explosively creative moment.