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Published on
06.07.2019 at 16:54
by
AFP
Sudanese anti-government protesters painted the walls of their challenge images – raised fists and rallying cries – during their weeks-long sit-in demonstration in Khartoum, which ended with bloody repression. .
Much of their revolutionary street art would have been destroyed, and now only photographs of their work are on display in a university space in central London turned into a temporary gallery.
"Unfortunately, much of this work has already been erased … we were fortunate to have pictures," said AFP Marwa Gibril, the organizer of the exhibition. at the SOAS University, during its inauguration on Friday.
A member of the British section of the Sudanese Medical Union, aged 31, said that most of the works had been painted during a brutal raid on June 3 on a long-standing protest camp that had killed dozens of protesters and injured hundreds of others.
"A lot of creativity was born, it lasted 57 days and then everything was ruined," she added.
"They painted (on them) with white paint."
– "Everything is gone now" –
Jumana Amir, 20, a student in Cardiff, Wales, arrived in Sudan at the age of three, went to London to see the 30 or so images exhibited for two days at SOAS, specializing in The study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Is.
She already knew some works after watching them in videos of sit-in events shared by family members.
"Unfortunately, everything is gone now, but I'm here to see it," she said, wearing Sudan's red and green hair.
"It made me very emotional," added Amir.
"I like a lot those who give a lot of power to women because, in my opinion, women have (have) played a very important role in the whole revolution."
She quotes a strikingly colorful painting depicting two Sudanese women adorned with heavy, traditional earrings and addressing the crowd, fists lifted.
Another daring figure depicts in black a woman's face frowning, with the Arabic phrase "revolution is the voice of a woman" emanating from her mouth.
The piece was signed by Esra Awad on April 24th.
Gibril, the organizer, noted that some works had been created anonymously, while others were signed.
"Some artists are known and some of them are known, some are absent after the sit-in," she said.
"They have never been found, so we do not know if they are alive or dead."
– "Artists are our greatest weapon" –
At least 136 people have been killed in Sudan since 3 June, including more than 100 on the day of the raid, according to doctors close to the demonstrators.
According to the Ministry of Health, 78 people were killed throughout the country during the same period.
Protest leaders and ruling generals reached a historic agreement earlier this week to turn the tide of months of political turmoil.
The sit-in protests, which began on April 6, have created something that looks like a self-sufficient "state within a state", according to Sudanese doctor Ahmed Hashim.
He is based in Britain but took some of the photos presented at the exhibition during a brief visit to Sudan in mid-April.
"People painted on the wall but also on the floor," he said.
"Every time you go there, there were people who painted.
"I would say that hundreds or thousands of works of art have been exhibited in the sit-in."
At least two of these works would have been inspired by the legendary British street artist Banksy.
For Amir, the student, the images of Hashim give people from outside Sudan an invaluable insight into the inner workings of the country's political upheaval.
"Everyone can come and look at that, which is why artists are our most powerful weapon, it's a universal language," she said.
The organizers also hope for support and appreciation of art.
"We ask for your solidarity and not just your curiosity," read on a sheet of A3 paper filed at the exhibition.
"Their bullets will not kill us, what kills, it's your silence," said another by the way out.
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