Revolution 2.12: This Year’s Arab Spring as Told By Its Art and Music, Part I

This article, written by Safa Samiezade'-Yazd, appeared on Art:21 blog on April 24,2012

Amidst all the other messages spray-painted around Tahrir Square, calls to action and demands for ousted President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation last year, one military tank stuck out. “The revolution is in Tahrir,” it read, “no sleeping in bed.”

It was a common consensus amongst protesters, who rallied, and continue to rally, to replace government corruption with reform, and despite sugar-coated concessions that underestimated a country’s intelligence by treating amendments like bandaids, one thing was clear: the energy of the people has still not yet waned. Instead, it continues to ceaselessly evolve as revolutionaries and reformers persistently provoke themselves and each other as creativity splinters through the cracks of worn-out censorship. In this sense, art, music and performance fueled revolution by giving the disenfranchised – the outsiders, the rebels, the refugees, the critics – a second draft to rewrite their country’s cultural memory.

READ MORE AT Art:21 Blog