In 2020, murals in cities all over the globe gave voice to black protest and resistance. Arwa Haider explores the powerful graffiti art that memorializes George Floyd and others.
Over the summer of 2020, a portrait recurred on city walls across the world: an image of the black American George Floyd, who was brutally suffocated to death by police officer David Chauvin on 25 May, 2020. Most of these portraits were based on Floyd’s 2016 selfie, taken from his own Facebook account; many referred to the torment of his killing, and his final words. Thousands of miles from the US, protests numerous graffiti tributes to Floyd appeared in European cities and in Asia, Africa and Australia.
In Karachi, truck artist Haider Ali painted a portrait inscribed with English tags (’#blacklivesmatter’) and Urdu song lyrics („This world doesn’t belong to white or black people, it belongs to the ones with heart”); in Idlib, northwestern Syria, Floyd appeared among the war-ravaged ruins; in Nairobi, he was depicted alongside the Swahili word „haki„, meaning 'justice’ (in a work by Kenyan artist Allan Mwangi, aka Mr Detail Seven); Palestinian artist Taqi Sbatin painted Floyd on the West Bank barrier; in Berlin’s Mauerpark, Floyd was portrayed on the wall by Dominican-born artist Eme Freethinker, alongside an array of iconic black US figures: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Jean-Michel Basquiat and the musician Prince.
These portraits are a testimony to human empathy, and the reach of the vast, multi-stranded Black Lives Matter movement. Graffiti is both an ancient form (traced back to writing on the wall in Ancient Greece and Rome) and a vital contemporary statement about society; independent graffiti and commissioned public art have also brought vivid focus to BLM. In a year when history is being emphatically questioned, and where a global pandemic has shut conventional galleries and museums, street art also highlights a diversity of viewpoints. The very public horror of Floyd’s killing (captured on videocam) lingers, but he is rarely an isolated figure; mural memorials also say the names of generations of innocent black US victims: among them, Breonna Taylor (killed by the police in her own home, 13 March, 2020); 12-year-old Tamir Rice (fatally shot by the police, 22 November, 2014); 14-year-old Emmett Till (lynched by racists, 28 August, 1955).International artists bring their own resonance; the Nairobi mural of Floyd also draws attention to accusations of police brutality in Kenya; Freethinker was adamant that his Berlin mural should honor Floyd’s life, rather than visualize his death, although he added in an interview with NPR: „I saw many, many other guys die by the police in my country, like almost for nothing. So I know how it is.” Syrian artist Aziz Asmar, who created the Idlib mural with Anis Hamdoun, told The National: „Art is a universal language. Our humanity requires us to unite with other people who are facing injustice. When we draw on the walls of destroyed buildings, we are telling the world that underneath these buildings there are people who have died or who have left their homes. It shows you that there was injustice here, just like there’s injustice in America.”