Street Art in Rabat

Telephone and Soup are Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg (see above). Casey is a writer, "stationeryeer" and "collageesta". Steven is an illustrator, painter and designer. Back in San Francisco he helped out a few days a week at Receiver Gallery.They are from Brooklyn and the D.C. area respectively.

Before moving to Morocco this past August they had set up camp in San Francisco where they hope to return in January ‘10. There are no pets.

Now one, person's art is anothers... Well, suspend judgment and hear what they have to say about graffiti in Rabat.

"Is it just me or does graffiti in ancient cities feel more visceral? Like, they don't have art schools on every block and they don't have art supply boutiques on every block and they don't have graffiti-inspired clothing and ad campaigns around every corner. So this stuff really comes from the heart, right? Epicly genuine, like outsider art or something" - Allan Hough, I Heart Street Art blog

We're in the city of Rabat for the next four months, finishing up our upcoming graphic novel ("To Timbuktu") and researching for another book. When we're not working on all that, we've been walking the streets. where we've noticed a lot of the tags in the 'old city' are for the local soccer clubs. For example, here is Rabat's team, "FAR," right below Coke's Arabic logo:

Once we started looking, we began to see FAR everywhere. Like here, behind that guy in the big yellow slippers (hey, it's traditional) on Avenue Mohammed V:

Seriously, everywhere:

​Unfortunately, it seems like the bubble-letter graffiti look is taking hold. (Fortunately, so are guitars and pirates?) ​Honestly, we've gotten really good at spotting "FAR"s all around. Can you find it in this one?

​We've recently been told (by a non-Rabat) that everyone not from Rabat thinks Rabatis are idiots. This may explain why we saw neighboring Kenitra's club, "KAC", tagged all over one of the many commuter trains between the two cities.


​They really went to town on the car. Of course, after that we started to see "KAC" everywhere in the Rabat 'old city'. Bold, no? That's totally FAR turf.

​Wait-- now Barca and Madrid fans are getting into the fray? It looks like we're going to have to pick a team soon even if we could give a shit about soccer. We mean football. Whatever. GO FAR!!!!


Read the full story with more images here: Street Art in Rabat
You will find their website here: Telephone and Soup