Hafsa Elazzaoui
Did you know that the longest graffiti scroll in the world is located in Dubai? The record was set on November 30th 2014 and registered in the Guinness world record book. The scroll is more than 2 kilometres long in the shape of the UAE. It was developed in honour of the 43th national day of the UAE, led by the Office of H. H. Crown Prince of Dubai (Hamdan bin Mohammed Al Maktoum). Over 100 graffiti artists from all over the world gathered in Dubai to be a part of this event. The name of the project Rehlatana , “our journey” in Arabic, refers to the history of the UAE. But I’m not writing this article to tell you about this “old news”. I was interested in the stories behind the art works. That is why I asked a couple of artists that were part of this event for the story behind their pieces of art.
These art works made it to my favourites, enjoy!
Huvil wanted to create something that represented UAE’s culture. This is why he chose to give the woman the traditional mask worn a lot in the Arab states of the Gulf. You can also see that the woman is looking up. This pose was done on purpose as a representation of the future vision of Dubai.
This artwork simply represents the past and the future of Dubai. In the middle of it you can see a clear separation between them.
As the project was in honour of the history of the UAE, the story of this artwork is very obvious. Mosques are a big part of the UAE culture because the majority of the country is Muslim. As for the camels the UAE was practically just a desert before the building of mainly Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Unfortunately I could not find the artist of this amazing artwork. But as a famous Chinese proverb says: ”one picture is worth ten thousand words.”
