Calligraffiti blossomed in the Middle East during the Arab spring. Public art had previously been dominated by dictators’ statues and murals of themselves. eL Seed’s “Perception” spans more than 50 buildings in Cairo’s Manshiyat Nasr ward, home to a community of Coptic Christians who serve as the city’s garbage recyclers. The mural spells out words from the third-century Coptic bishop Saint Athanasius of Alexandria: “Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eye first” and is only visible from a specific point on nearby Muqattam Mountain. (eL Seed)
