From Gernika to Rafah

The origin of this piece of graffiti, which takes “the image of the mother with child” from Guernica, was, in the words of its creators: “at the height of a creative block to make the work, the bombing [of the refugee camp] Rafah took place and — almost without speaking to each other — we knew it was our duty to show the horrors of [that] war in our mural”, in a beginning that resembles how Pablo Picasso started his work, drawing inspiration from the bombing of Guernica in April 1937. Therefore, for this graffiti work in Los Alcázares, Murcia, the artists, “moved by the massacre”, tell of how their “initial idea was a hand breaking the earth asking for help… and it occurred to us to search for one of the hands from Guernica. In examining the work, we saw the image of the mother with child, and it was just perfect. All that remained was to add bursts of colour, ruins and a dense, almost stifling atmosphere to give the work the drama it needed”.