More than two years after protesters toppled Hosni Mubarak, Cairo is still ablaze with fiery visual reminders of Egypt's revolution. On the edge of Tahrir Square - the nerve centre of dissent - the burned-out tower block that once housed the headquarters of Mubarak's National Democratic Party (NDP) stands blackened and empty. It forms a jarring juxtaposition with the coral-pink walls of the Egyptian Museum, the dusty storehouse of the country's most precious antiquities, next door.
Around the corner, there is a different kind of monument to the revolution. Mohamed Mahmoud Street - which intersects with Tahrir Square from the east - is as colourful and vibrant as the sombre skeleton of the NDP building is charred. Almost every square centimetre of the walls that flank the street has been covered with bright, cacophonous paint. These murals are some of the best examples of the inimitable street art movement that has flourished since the protests against Mubarak began.
“There was very little street art in Egypt before the revolution," says Mia Gröndahl, a writer and photographer who has lived in Cairo since 2001, and whose book Revolution Graffiti: Street Art of the New Egypt was published in the UK last month. “So few pieces, in fact, that people weren't aware of it. But Egypt had the artists waiting to come out of the closet and express themselves honestly and politically."
Most of these artists were forged in the fire of the 18-day demonstrations against Mubarak in early 2011, when at least 846 people were killed. Emboldened by the ferocity of the protesters, several artists started painting slogans and murals commenting upon the tumultuous events that were convulsing their country. While other young protesters hurled bricks, Egypt's fledgling street artists picked up paintbrushes and spray cans. “By the summer of 2011," Gröndahl writes in her book, “people had started to talk about the walls of Egypt being under an 'art attack'."
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The art created by the street artists was also a target of violent attacks.