In 2015, talented street artist eL Seed created “Perception” an absolutely stunning anamorphic mural that was painted onto 50 different buildings and can only be fully seen from atop the Moqattam Mountain. The mural sits within the colloquially known Garbage City at the southern end of the Cairo neighborhood Manshiyat Naser and where a great many of the Coptic Christians who work as trash collectors live. eL Seed and his team immersed themselves within the community and found that he was learning a great deal about himself as well as the community, and ultimately called the mural a “project of peace”.
In my new project ‘Perception’ I am questioning the level of judgment and misconception society can unconsciously have upon a community based on their differences. In the neighborhood of Cairo, the Coptic community of Zaraeeb collects the trash of the city for decades and developed the most efficient and highly profitable recycling system on a global level. Still, the place is perceived as dirty, marginalized and segregated. To bring light on this community, with my team and the help of the local community, I created anamorphic piece that covers almost 50 buildings only visible from a certain point of the Moqattam Mountain. The piece of art uses the words of Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, a Coptic Bishop from the 3rd century, that said: ‘Anyone who wants to see the sunlight clearly needs to wipe his eye first.
eL Seed shared the project story in a beautifully emotional TED Talk
