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Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist and filmmaker who has lived in London for over a decade, started Paint the Change to stimulate dialogue around urgent social issues through the arts. The Grenfell fire artwork is the project\u2019s first mural.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love London and I\u2019m fucking angry,\u201d Bahari said. \u201cI love my city with all its history of wars, riots, swinging, resilience and diversity. I love the fact that dozens of nationalities live (mostly) peacefully together, and that we have the only Muslim mayor of all major western cities. But I\u2019m angry about the chasm in this city. I\u2019m furious that we don\u2019t know, and we don\u2019t care to know, about our neighbours. Like most people, I felt saddened and shocked when I saw the images of Grenfell Tower on fire. My anger was soon turned into helplessness and hopelessness. How could this happen? How could we allow dozens of innocent people to die because of the greed and carelessness of a few people?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Okri\u2019s poem \u201cGrenfell Tower, June, 2017\u201d, composed in the days after the fire and first broadcast on Channel 4 News and published in the Financial Times, will be rendered across the 120-square-metre wall of the Village Underground on Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, east London. The lines \u201cYou saw it in the tears of those who survived\u201d will appear in Eine\u2019s colourful style \u2013 with the full 1,600-word poem appearing across the wall as the background to the main text.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t stop crying when I saw that had Ben Okri said it all in his beautiful poem,\u201d<\/em> Bahari added, explaining his choice of Okri\u2019s poem for the mural. \u201cI repeated one line for days: \u2018You heard it in the cries in the air howling for justice.\u2019 This mural is our attempt to share Ben\u2019s poem with rest of the world. We wanted to have this wall close to the burnt tower, but the tower is already there.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Okri won the 1991 Booker Prize for his novel The Famished Road. He was born in Nigeria and educated in England before taking up poetry and fiction in the 1970s. His writing has touched on political and social issues since the beginning of his career. Okri lives near the North Kensington neighbourhood where the fire took place.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it is an extraordinary idea,\u201d Okri said, referring to the mural of his poem. \u201cAnything that can draw attention to that outrage to humanity, anything that can commemorate the dead and help the survivors has my support.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Eine\u2019s work has appeared across east London and other cities around the world for over a decade. He was asked to design the Amnesty International 50th anniversary poster in 2011; a year earlier, in 2010, the former UK prime minister David Cameron presented an Eine work as a gift to former US president Barack Obama.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a Londoner,\u201d<\/em> Eine said, \u201cwith deep roots in the city\u2019s subculture, I am proud and privileged to be involved in this important and historic initiative. Our hope for this mural, which we\u2019re painting in response to the Grenfell fire, is that it will help keep this discussion alive and bring the victims and survivors out of the shadows so that they can receive justice. I\u2019m happy that my skills can try to help make a positive difference after such an awful tragedy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Paint the Change grew out of Bahari\u2019s street art and human rights project, Education Is Not A Crime, which has produced more than 40 murals around the world and two documentary films to raise awareness of education inequality. The new project will use public art and film to address issues from injustice against minorities to environmental degradation and other social causes.<\/p>\n \u201cOur wall in Shoreditch is an attempt to reflect the anger in west London in our corner of the city,\u201d<\/em> Bahari said. \u201cWe\u2019re honoured to have Ben Okri\u2019s blessing, and proud to be working with Ben Eine who\u2019s going to create a new masterpiece on this wall.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Village Underground has hosted murals on its Holywell Lane wall for 10 years \u2013 visible to thousands of people a day.<\/p>\n The new mural will be painted over 18-19 July and interviews can be arranged with Okri, Eine and Bahari at the site.<\/p>\n Connect with Paint the Change<\/strong><\/p>\n paintthechange.me<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/nijimagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/IMG_0096-750x501.jpg\")
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