53 Transcultural Studies 2016.2 Engaged Ephemeral Art: Street Art and the Egyptian Arab Spring Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, University of Oslo “…with a box of colours costing three pounds, you draw an idea, you paint a revolution…” 1 Introduction The wave of uprisings that swept over the Middle East and North Africa from December 2010 to early 2013, known as the “Arab Spring,” was what Aleida Assmann deines as an “impact event” (Assmann 2015, 44–46). I consider it a kairos, a leeting opportune moment where time and action meet and fates may be changed. It was a promising moment, in which governments were toppled and hopes for changes were high. Not only did the Arab Spring leave its imprint on political and social life in the countries concerned, but it also marked a change in various forms of artistic expression (Hamamsy and Soliman 2013b, 12–13; 2013c, 252–254; Jondot 2013). Street art, grafiti, and calligrafiti are perhaps the most striking forms of art from this short period. Artists used to record and comment on events and developments in the political situation. They drew upon their people’s cultural memory to impart their messages and express dissent, civil disobedience, and resistance by combining images and scripts. Poetry and political songs that previously had mostly been known to underground groups and intellectual elites were widely circulated. Verses from the Tunisian poet Abul Qasim al Shabbi (1909–1934) and the Egyptian poets Fouad Negm (1929–2013) and Abdel Rahman al-Abnudi (1938–2015) were used as slogans and chanted all over the region (Nicoarea 2015; Sanders IV and Visonà 2012; Wahdan 2014). Famous quotes from national political and cultural igures were also used, among them Mustafa Kamel’s (1874–1908) “If I weren’t already an Egyptian, I would want to be one” (lau lam akun miryan la aradtu an akna miryan); Saad Zaghloul’s (1859–1927) “It’s useless” (mafsh fayda); President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s statement that “the people are the leader and the teacher” (al shaʽb huwa al qaʾid wal muʽallim); and the song “Patience Has Its Limits” (lil sabr hudd), by the famous singer 1 Facebook page Grafiti in Egypt, posted 8. April 2015. …‘albat alwān bi talata guinih tirsim ikra wa tirsim thawra…. The transliteration from Arabic follows the guidelines given by The Library of Congress AIA-LC Romanization Tables, http://loc.gov/catdir/cpso/romanization/arabic.pdf [Accessed on 5. August 2016]. doi: 10.17885/heiup.ts.2016.2.23590 cbn