Palestine day 5

Today I stayed in Ramallah and did a wall together with the local artist Majd 10 meters from the central square called Arafat Square. The sun was hot and a lot of curious people came by. After that I went to a playground with some female activists who wanted to learn how to paint a wall. They had done some political stencil graffiti before.  First I talked a bit about the many ways you can paint a mural and then they talked a lot back and forth about what to paint. In the end they came up with an idea. And painted it 15 min. before it got dark.
Tomorrow is the big Jerusalem day.

Majd doing stencils

On the square next to us was a demonstrations for the political prisoners.

With the activists on the playground

Wearing a low-fi space suit as paint protection

Working on the idea

I did a bit of painting while they did some brain storming

Action !

Final result. Must be the group photo of the year. The text says  'Female revolt''

Bus trip to Bethlehem.

Today we went on a bus trip to Bethlehem arranged by The Danish House in Palestine. In the mini bus was half of all of the graffiti writers in Palestine (10 people!) and many off these had never met before or painted with other writers. So it was a historic tour. The possible start of a movement.
We ended up doing a crazy wall where everyone did their thing.
Notice that none of the local writes use a graffiti name. The police don't care about graffiti here, so there is no reason to use a graffiti name.

On our way we went past the big wall Israel build on the West Bank. Many of the local artists  don't want to paint on it because they want it to stay ugly. On this photo Majd explains about the art piece he did in the back. It's all the letters of the 'Palestinian letter of independence'.

Here is the whole thing he did

The wall goes though palestinian cities and separate families.

Here we visit the painted part of the wall in Ramallah. The locals don't travel around the country so much, because its full of check points. So some of the writers had not seen this part of the wall before.

We managed to get the permission to paint this house near Bethlehem just by asking the owner.

First we did some sketches. The writes were not really use to paint with other writes and it took a while to get whole thing started.

Lunch. The food is excellent here.

All of the writers here do political graffiti.

Last minute character

I can easily say that I have never done a wall like this before.

Looking a the final result before getting on the bus again and going home to Ramallah

Painting in Hebron.

I have been invited to the West Bank by the Danish House In Palestine to meet with local graffiti writers, paint and to see the country. Its been an amazing trip so far. Even if life is tough here people are so kind. And its the easiest place to paint. The police dont care what you are doing and you can get the permission to paint on all of the walls you want just by asking the owners of houses. This should be the new graffiti destination.

Beduin settlement 

Commercial graffiti 

This wall took 2 sec to get the permission to paint,

Painting with the local writer Adb. He sketched with a pencil

 

Check the guy on the mule. Culture clash!

using the local paint with the original cap

The text says something like 'make way' or 'clear the road' in arabic.

PFLP graffiti

Jewish settlement on the west bank.
The West Bank is a maze with road blocks, refugee camps, watch towers, walls....and normal people trying to lead a normal life in the middle of it all.

The sky over the holy land.

The wall. A pretty old school way to solve a problem.

The painted part of the wall in Ramallah.

Day 2 down south

The local market in Ramallah

The tools

There was a big scout parade in town today

The center square

Scouts 

Smoking water pipe on the street