Paint bombs in Aita

6 images in this album  [slideshow]  [login]    Gallery: Arofish stencil graffiti    Album: The Scrawls of War - Graffiti from IRAQ, PALESTINE and LEBANON    Album: Lebanon   CLICK ON PICS TO ENLARGE. Not my most sophisticated project, this one, but by far the most rewarding in terms of sheer fun and of stretching the possibilities for a spray can and a public wall. Aita al-Shaab, South Lebanon, lies about 2k off the “front line” with Israel and, as of a month ago, is estimated to be 80-90% damaged. You can wander between bomb-craters and mounds of rubble (stepping over bits of unexploded ordnance) past houses more than half demolished – and then awkwardly avert your gaze on seeing that whole families are still living in them, under crumpled roofs which hang draped, held up by their metal re-bars, over the half-collapsed, shrapnel-spattered walls. Others look like huge chunks have been bitten out of them. In Palestine, when a house is destroyed, the family usually moves in with other family. When, like here, 200 such homes are rendered uninhabitable (by any test) most people simply have to stay put. It wasn't like this a month ago. I went there on September 4th as part of the Samidoun relief network. A largely tranquil, sunny afternoon was intermittently punctuated by the sound of unexploded cluster bombs- Israel's parting gift left in the soil all around- being detonated under control. Relief work was sporadic, so, between unloading water bottles off trucks and making up food parcels, I thought up something for the local kids. A lot of people in NGO/activist circles are talking about “art therapy” these days. To me the best therapy can sometimes be to fucking hit out at something. After getting the OK I made some big stencils of Bush, Blair, Condi Rice and Ehud Olmert, drawing them onto cartoon animal bodies, as a common form of insult here is to call someone an animal. I sprayed them at night on the smashed wall I’d been given in the town square, as I hoped that the kids would be in bed and that what I had planned for the next day would be a surprise. Half way through the first piece I became aware that about 40 people, all ages, were standing right behind me in a tight group, glaring intently at the wall. Others looked on from the shadows further away. “Not much pressure, then,” I thought, peeling the stencil off the wall to a dumb silence. Then, after a few seconds and to my inexpressible relief, they very clearly started to “get it”. Voices swelled in number and volume as they excitedly pointed out to one another what it was all about. Laughter burst out up and down the line. Someone found a chair for me to stand on to spray the high bits, supported my back with his hand. Little kids clustered around me and were barked back out of my way by the men. It was pitch dark now so one guy shone his car headlights on the wall so I could see better. Afterwards I gave out some big marker pens. People wrote the characters’ names in Arabic and a variety of other messages and slogans. We threw a tarpaulin over and left it till the morning. Next day we fetched buckets full of paint-filled water balloons and told the 30-or-so local kids that behind the tarp were some of the people who’d caused all the damage. They knew all the names; they didn’t need telling. The pictures tell the rest, but I wish they could capture the noise. Condi got the worst of it, by far, and you can make of that what you will.  Gallery: Arofish stencil graffiti    Album: The Scrawls of War - Graffiti from IRAQ, PALESTINE and LEBANON    Album: Lebanon   Powered by Gallery v1.4.4-pl4