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So when I decided to create
an art piece in Manshiyat Nasr,
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the neighborhood of the Cairo
garbage collectors in Egypt,
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I never thought this project
would be the most amazing
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human experience that I would ever live.
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As an artist, I had
this humanist intention
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of beautifying a poor
and neglected neighborhood
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by bringing art to it and hopefully
shining light on this isolated community.
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The first time I heard about
this Christian Coptic community
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was in 2009 when the Egyptian authorities
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under the regime of Hosni Mubarak
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decided to slaughter 300,000 pigs
using the pretext of H1N1 virus.
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Originally, they are pigs breeders,
their pigs and other animals are fed
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with the organic waste that they
collect on a daily basis.
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This event killed their livelihood.
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The first time I entered
Manshiyat Nasr, it felt like a maze.
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I was looking for the St Simon Monastery
on the top of the Moqqatam Mountain.
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So you go right, then straight,
then right again, then left
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to reach all the way to the top.
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But to reach there, you must dodge between
the trucks over-packed with garbage
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and slalom between the tuk-tuks,
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the fastest vehicle to move around
in the neighborhood.
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The smell of the garbage
unloaded from those trucks was intense,
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the noise of the traffic
was loud and overbearing.
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Add to it the din created by the crushers
in those warehouses along the way.
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From outside it looks chaotic,
but everything is perfectly organized.
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The Zaraeeb, that’s how
they call themselves,
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which means the pig breeders,
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have been collecting the garbage of Cairo
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and sorting it in their own
neighborhood for decades.
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They have developed one of
the most efficient and highly profitable
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systems on a global level.
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Still, the place is perceived as dirty,
marginalized, and segregated
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because of their association
with the trash.
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So my initial idea was to create
an anamorphic piece,
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a piece that you can only see
from one vantage point.
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I wanted to challenge myself artistically
by painting over several buildings
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and have it only fully visible from
one point on the Moqqatam Mountain.
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The Moqqatam Mountain is the pride
of the community.
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This is where they built
the St. Simon Monastery,
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a 10,000-seat cave church that they carved
into the mountain itself.
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So, the first time I stand
on top of the mountain
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and I looked at the neighborhood,
I asked myself,
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how on earth will I convince
all those owners to let me paint
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on their buildings?
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And then Magd came.
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Magd is a guide from the Church.
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He told me the only person I need
to convince was Father Samaan,
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who is the leader of the community.
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But to convince Father Samaan,
I needed to convince Mario,
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a Polish artist who moved
to Cairo 20 years ago
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and who created all the artwork
of the Cave Church.
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I am really grateful to Mario.
He was the key of the project.
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He managed to get me
a meeting with Father Samaan,
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and surprisingly, he loved the idea.
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He asked me about
where I painted before,
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and how I will make it happen.
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And he was mainly concerned
by what I was going to write.
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In every work that I create,
I write messages
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with my style of Arabic calligraphy.
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I make sure those messages are relevant
to the place where I am painting but
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has this universal dimension so anybody
around the world can relate to it.
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So for Manshiyat Nasr, I decided
to write in Arabic the words
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of St. Athanasius of Alexandria,
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a Coptic Bishop from the third century,
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who said [Arabic],
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which means in English,
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"Anyone who wants
to see the sunlight clearly
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needs to wipe his eyes first."
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It was really important for me
that the community
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felt connected to the words.
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And for me this quote was perfectly
reflecting the spirit of the project.
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So Father Samaan blessed the project,
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and his approval brought
all the residents on board.
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Hundreds of liters of paint,
a dozen of blue manual lifts,
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several trips back and forth to Cairo,
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a strong and solid team from France,
North Africa, Middle East, and the US,
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and after a year of planning
and logistics, there we are,
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my team and some members
from the local community
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creating a piece that will spread
over 50 buildings,
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some filling up the space
of the calligraphy
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that I trace with colors.
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Here some blue, there some yellow,
there some orange.
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Some others carrying sand bags and putting
them on the top of the buildings
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to hold those manual lifts,
and some others assembling
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and disassembling those same lifts
and moving them around
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the different buildings.
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At the beginning of the project, I
numbered all those building on my sketch,
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and there was no real interaction
with the community.
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People didn’t get the point of all this.
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But fast enough, those building numbers
became family names.
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The first building was the house
of Uncle Ibrahim.
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Uncle Ibrahim is such
an enthusiastic person.
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He was always singing and making jokes,
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and his daughters and sons saved me
from his bull who wanted to attack me
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on the fourth floor.
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(Laughter)
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Actually, the bull saw me from the window
and came out on the balcony.
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(Laughter)
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Yeah.
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Uncle Ibrahim was always hanging out
on the balcony and talking to me
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while I was painting.
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I remember him saying that
he didn’t go to the mountain for 10 years,
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and that he never takes a day off.
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He said that if he stopped working,
who will stop the garbage?
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But surprisingly,
at the end of the project,
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he came all the way to the mountain
to look at the piece.
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He was really proud
to see his house painted,
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and he said that this project
was a project of peace and --
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sorry --
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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He said that was project of peace and
unity and that it brought people together.
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So his perception
towards the project changed,
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and my perception towards
the community changed also,
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and towards what they do.
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All the garbage that everybody
is disgusted by was not theirs.
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They just work out of it.
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Actually, they don’t live in the garbage.
They live from the garbage.
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So I started doubting myself
and wondering,
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what was the real purpose
of this whole project?
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It wasn’t about beautifying
a place by bringing art to it.
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It was about switching perception
and open a dialogue
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on the connection that we have
with communities that we don’t know.
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So day after day, the calligraphy circle
was taking shape,
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and we were always excited to go back
on the mountain to look at the piece.
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And standing exactly at this point
every day made my realize
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the symbolism behind
this anamorphic piece.
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If you want to see
the real image of somebody,
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maybe you should change your angle.
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There was doubts and difficulties,
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like fears and stress.
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It wasn't simple to work
in such environments,
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sometimes having pigs under you
while you paint
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or climbing a stack of garbage
to reach a lift.
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But we all got over the fear
of the heights, the swinging lifts,
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the strength of the smell, and also
the stress of not finishing on time.
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But the kindness of all those people
made us forget everything.
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The building number 3 was the house
of Uncle Bakheet and Aunty Fareeda.
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In Egyptian, they have
this expression that says, "Ahsen Nas,"
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which means "the best people."
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They were the best people.
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We used to take our break
in front of their houses,
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and all the kids of the neighborhood
used to join us.
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I was impressed and amazed
by the kids of Manshiyat Nasr.
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For the first few days, they were always
refusing anything we were offering them,
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even a snack or a drink.
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So I asked Aunty Fareeda, "Why is that?"
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And she told me they teach
their kids to refuse anything
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from someone they don't know,
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because maybe this person
needs it more than they do.
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So at this exact point I realized actually
the Zaraeeb community
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was the ideal context to raise
the topic of perception.
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We need to question
our level of misconception
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and judgment we can have as society,
upon a communities
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based on their differences.
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I remember how we got delayed
on Uncle Bakheet’s house
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when his pigs that are bred
on the rooftop were eating the sand bags
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that hold the lifts.
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(Laughter)
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The house of Uncle Bakheet
and Aunty Fareeda
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was this kind of meeting point.
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Everybody used to gather there.
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I think this is what Uncle Ibrahim meant
when he said that was a project
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of peace and unity, because I really
felt that people were coming together.
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Everyone was greeting us
with a smile, offering us a drink,
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or inviting us into their
own house for lunch.
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Sometime, you are at the first level
of a building,
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and somebody opens his window
and offer you some tea.
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And then the same thing happens
on the second floor.
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And you keep going all the way to the top.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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I think I never drink as much tea
as I did in Egypt.
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(Laughter)
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And to be honest with you,
we could have finished earlier,
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but I think it took us three weeks
because of all those tea breaks.
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(Laughter)
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In Egypt, they have another expression,
which is "‘Nawartouna,"
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which means, "You brought light to us."
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In Manshiyat Nasr they were
always telling us this.
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The calligraphy, actually, I used a white
glow-in-the-dark paint for the calligraphy
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so at the end of the project, we rented
some black light projectors
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and lit up the whole neighborhood,
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surprising everybody around.
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We wanted to tell them that
they are the ones who brought light to us.
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(Applause)
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The Zaraeeb community are strong,
honest, hard workers,
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and they know their value.
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The people of Cairo call them
"the Zabaleen," which means
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"the people of the garbage,"
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but ironically, the people of
Manshiyat Nasr
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call the people of Cairo the Zabaleen.
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They say, they are the ones
who produce the garbage, not them.
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(Laughter)
(Applause)
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The goal was to leave something
to this community, but I feel that they
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are the ones who left something
in our lives.
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You know, the art project
was just a pretext
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for this amazing human experience.
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The art piece at some point
will disappear, vanish,
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and actually there is somebody
who is building a second floor
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in front of Uncle Ibrahim's house,
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so it's covering part of the painting,
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so I might need to go back
and paint over it.
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It was about the experience,
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about the story,
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about the moment.
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From the streets of the neighborhood,
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the painting appears in fragments,
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isolated from one another,
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standing alone.
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But connected with the sign
of calligraphy that today reveals
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the powerful message that we should
all think about before we want
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to judge somebody.
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Anyone who wants to see
the sunlight clearly
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needs to wipe his eyes first.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)