Despatches
The writing’s on the wall in Cairo; Edinburgh’s most elusive artist; the room with the best view in London; remembering the Titanic in Belfast
[ CAIRO ]
Painting the town
HIS CAR STINKS OF SPRAY PAINT. If he were ever stopped by the police, I’m not sure how he’d explain away a back seat piled with aerosol cans, surgical gloves and tape.
We’re on his turf – a narrow lane behind the Ahly Club in Zamalek. The walls that run along this backstreet have always attracted graffiti, but since the January revolution they’ve taken on a new significance. These days they’re a canvas for an emerging generation of politicised urban artists, such as Sad Panda, CBJ, Zook and my companion tonight, Keizer.
In fact, most of one wall is dominated by art by Keizer. This is his practice ground, the place he tries out new pieces. The reason for that is that it’s quiet here at night and he’s rarely interrupted, other than by the occasional street sweeper.
He’s understandably wary of attention and of his true identity being revealed – the penalty could mean being hauled up before a military tribunal and even imprisonment.
Tonight, though, is busier than usual and he draws the attention of some passers-by. They approach him tentatively, so he says ‘H’obby’ (my love) and offers his hand to shake. It seems to work and nobody takes him to task for spray-painting the wall. Instead, they ask him about his art, wanting to know what it means. Why the housewife with the grenade? They tell him they wish he would make something they could understand.
His signature stencils, dotted about the city, are reminiscent of British street artist Bansky. They include a girl on a swing, the message ‘You are beautiful’ and, above, crawling ants. Innocent imagery made subversive by the medium. But there are also stencils of well-known individuals who have got on the wrong side of public opinion, such as veteran actor Adel Imam, business tycoon Ahmed Ezz and former head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, which Keizer tags with unambiguously scathing comments.
While some of Cairo’s street artists spray an occasional stencil here and there, Keizer has made graffiti his full-time occupation. He spends his days designing, cutting and perfecting stencils, and talks about his ideas with the passion of someone who has truly found his calling. The appeal of street art, he tells me, is that it is accessible to everyone. ‘We should all be doing it,’ he says. SuzeeInTheCity www.suzeeinthecity.com
[ BELFAST ]
Fatal attraction
DECKED OUT IN HARDHATS and yellow safety jackets, we’re sloshing through grey mud towards the silvery building that is Titanic Belfast, a £100m visitor centre due to open this spring.
This monumental slab of architecture, fashioned to resemble a ship’s bow, is the crowning glory of a waterfront regeneration project on reclaimed land in Belfast Harbour, a 185-acre site previously occupied by part of the Harland and Wolff shipyard. Countless ocean-going vessels were once built here, including P&O’s Canberra, the Royal Navy’s HMS Belfast and, in the early years of the 20th century, the White Star line’s Olympic, Britannic and, as the name of the visitor centre proudly proclaims, Titanic.
This year makes the centenary of the liner’s tragic sinking on 15 April 1912 during the ship’s maiden voyage. Since then, through the endless retellings of the story in print and on film (particularly that film), the horror of the 1,517 lives lost has been sufficiently romanticised and glamourised that a city can make a signature attraction of its associations with the disaster.
Inside, Titanic Belfast is a mass of concrete and hanging wires, with a soundtrack of hammers and drills as we explore what will be nine interactive galleries. When it opens on 31 March – the exact date 100 years ago that workers completed the outfitting of the ship – visitors will experience what it was like to work in the docks, entering through the old factory gates before taking a theme park-style ride through the ‘ship’.
Stood at a window with a breathtaking view over Belfast Lough, Titanic Belfast’s Claire Bradshaw explains that visitors will see archive footage of the launch of the liner’s hull on 31 May 1911, which will fade to leave viewers looking out at the very slipway. Other areas of the centre will recreate the sense of being aboard back in 1912 – except visitors get to exit back onto the dry land where the Titanic‘s journey began and not into the icy waters where it ended. James Bartlett www.titanicbelfast.com
[ LONDON ]
Room with a view
High above the crowds strolling along the South Bank is an unlikely new addition to London’s skyline – a curious, blunt-ended boat, beached on the roof of the Queen Elizabeth Hall like a 21st-century Noah’s Ark.
It is a house. Inside it is a tiny kitchenette, bathroom and bedroom; a ladder climbs up to the octagonal library and upper deck, with views that stretch from Big Ben to St Paul’s. Designed by architect David Kohn and artist Fiona Banner, the structure will remain in situ throughout 2012. As the city goes into Olympic overdrive, the idea is that it will become a place of ‘refuge and reflection’ for artists and writers in residence.
Most excitingly, it’s also available to the public for one-night stays, with room for two. Guests are given the run of the place from early afternoon, with a flag to hoist to show they’re in residence and a logbook to chart the experience.
With no public access to the rooftop, it offers a chance to survey the cityscape in magnificent isolation. ‘Depending on where you’re standing, the London Eye, Houses of Parliament and the City all appear to sit along the edge of the roof, so you feel as if the whole of London is gathered up around you,’ say Banner and Kohn. ‘The sky looms large, too; it’ll be extraordinary in a storm, with the rain lashing against the sides of the boat and lightning illuminating the sky.’
Bookings for stays between July and December 2012 (from £120 per night) can be made online on 19 January, though you’ll have to move fast: the first batch of dates, which went on sale in September, sold out in 12 minutes. Elizabeth Winding www.aroomforlondon.co.uk
[ EDINBURGH ]
Paper chase
A STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL TREE was planted in the Scottish Poetry Library last spring. Its branches had been intricately carved from the pages of a book (below), and it sat alongside a gold-rimmed paper egg filled with verse by Scottish poet Edwin Morgan. A note addressed to @byleaveswelive, the library’s Twitter handle, read: ‘This is for you in support of libraries, books, words, ideas.’
‘Our librarian was astounded when she found it,’ recalls Robyn Marsack, director of the Poetry Library. ‘Nobody saw anyone come in and put it there.’ Photos of the ‘poetree’ created an online buzz and Edinburgh’s literary sleuths began hunting for clues. But it would be three months before the artist made her next move. A tiny gramophone and coffin, both made from the pages of Exit Music, a crime novel by Edinburgh writer Ian Rankin, mysteriously appeared in the National Library of Scotland. Over the coming weeks, a cinema fashioned from a hollowed-out book landed at the Filmhouse, a paper dragon flew into the Scottish Storytelling Centre, a paper afternoon tea was served at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, and the Central Lending Library received a paper magnifying glass. A tenth, final, gift – a bird’s wing of paper feathers and a pair of paper gloves – appeared in the Women’s Anthologies section of the Scottish Poetry Library in November. ‘Often a good story ends where it begins,’ read the note. ‘So this would mean a return to the Poetry Library.’
The note also confirmed the artist was female, but offered no clues to her identity. Many are quite happy that she should remain anonymous. ‘It’s fitting that the last thing she gave us was carved from the Norman MacCaig poem ‘Gifts’, because these were gifts in the purest possible sense,’ says Marsack. ‘She doesn’t seek fame, she just wants to draw attention to the fact that libraries need support. We know we can enrich people’s lives and the maker of these sculptures shares our passion.’
‘I’d just like to say thank you,’ Marsack adds. ‘From the heart, thank you, for these most poetic of gifts.’ Matthew Lee
