Bridge Talk

By T-Square Staff

Last week, students who've made a habit of parking in Al Adailiya and crossing the pedestrian bridge to Kuwait University’s Al Khalidiya Campus met a pleasant surprise. A mystery graffitist had sprayed one of the bridge’s steps with the silhouette of an elephant accompanied with the enigmatic text: “you breathe because you don’t know what’s in the air”.

On its surface, this is a simple act of vandalism, but I can’t deny that the bridge crossing ‘experience’ has been enhanced by this intervention. For one, the awkwardly proportioned boring concrete steps have become slightly more alive. The unclear nature of the graffitist’s message has injected the monotonous repetition of grey with something to attract attention and stimulate thought and conversation.

What’s even more interesting is that a few days later another mystery graffitist answered the first message. He sarcastically painted a pie chart showing that air is mostly comprised of nitrogen and oxygen. The second message elevated the graffiti from vandalism to a conversation, that when compared to other graffiti in Kuwait, turns out to be quite an intelligent one.

Perhaps, what’s most telling about how students view this graffiti is that most users of the bridge (that I saw) avoid stepping on it, making an effort to go around the ongoing ‘conversation’.