Iconic Street Art from Egyptian Revolution Shown in Canada
The legendary blue bra stencil from the streets of Cairo is making its way to Canada as a silkscreen print at Montreal’s Station 16 gallery.
Created by Bahia Shehab, the piece refers to the brutal beating and stripping of a woman by the Egyptian military in December 2010, which revealed her blue bra on live television. The bra quickly became a symbol for police brutality and the revolution.
Shehab, an artist, designer and Islamic art historian, created this stencil as part of a larger series, “A Thousands Times No: The Visual History of Lam-Alif,” wherein the artist found a thousand and one different visual representations of “no” in Arabic from over 1,400 years, aimimg to show the rich history of Egypt.
“How do you move forward if you don’t know where you came from? If you don’t understand your heritage, your background and your history, how can you properly move forward? Because with the globalization we have adopted the modes of the west. We have followed, complied, been colonized and imitated their art. But did this get us anywhere?,” Shehab asked during an interview with the Louisiana Channel, “Art as a Tool for Change.”
Named “No to Stripping the People,” the silkscreen will be part of “A Global Street Art Story” exhibit, which will feature artwork by 15 other international street artists.
Shehab’s full interview with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is available below.
Source: stepfeed.com