Art on the Streets of Khartoum
Khartoum Scenes, Imogen Thurbon
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Setting the Scene
“There I was, cutting through a strange market crowd – not just people shopping for their salad greens, but beggars and butchers and thieves, prancers and Prophet-praisers and soft-sided soldiers, the newly-arrived and the just-retired, the flabby and the flimsy, sellers roaming and street kids groaning, god-damners, bus-waiters and white-robed traders, elegant and fumbling…”
The excerpt above comes from Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away, Bushra al-Fadil, translated by Max Schmookler, from The Book of Khartoum, Award-winning short stories by established and new Sudanese writers. Click here to read The Story of the Girl Whose Birds Flew Away
See too I know Two Sudans – short stories by talented young Anglo-Sudanese writers – trying to broaden and deepen the narrative on Sudan. Watch Leila Aboulela talking about I Know Two Sudans Listen to the young writers talking about how they came to write in I know Two Sudans
The city of Khartoum has inspired countless writers and artists. This post is first and foremost an appreciation of a recent public art project undertaken by undergraduates of Khartoum University, photos below, who created murals to enrich and complement the joyful atmosphere of Atina Square, central Khartoum; a vibrant meeting place for coffee and conversation. It is just one of the city’s vibrant mosaics of murals and public art.
Below, short video Around Khartoum Walks – Sudanese Street Photographers
Young Khartoum Street Photographers
Street Scenes, Central Khartoum, Imogen Thurbon
Street Art Project by Students of Khartoum University Art Faculty
Atina Square, off Parliament Street, central Khartoum
Below, “prepare the morning coffee and you will swiftly forget the morning bath”.
Commemorating the Sudanese Struggle for Independence, mural seen near the Presidential Palace,
Seen in Central Khartoum, 2016
Women's literacy in Sudan 