On recent travels through Beirut and London, I snapped some street art mainly in the Hamra area of Beirut. Hamra is a thriving, cosmopolitan & dynamic area of West Beirut near the Universities & student/cultural areas. The included pictures are some caught one fine day strolling the area. Beirut is bubbling, no doubt!

The Palestinian Intafada is an ongoing symbol of resistance, for a people so wrongly treated from 1948 onwards. Even Christian Lebanese are quite aware of the fact that without the Hezbollah resistance in the South, there would be no peace currently in Lebanon. The Zionist forces within Israel and internationally would simply take whatever they could from the indigenous population – they seem to simply have no heart or empathy.

Hip Hop language and symbology is of course now global, and is represented everywhere, including West Beirut. From graffiti to poster art the colours are evident, and one of the finest proponents of Arabic Hip Hop Rayess Bek, has his own unique style plastered on the city streets.

Architecture, in its various stages of repair and dis-use, also provides a visually stunning backdrop to a city perpetually in stages of renewal, rebuild & destruction. Beirut, one day you will be left to your own future, inshallah…

and there is of course poetry, like the steps decorated with Gibran’s words in Ashrafieh, and of course always a little humour.