Loading ...These Artists Claim Their Anti-Homeland Graffiti Made It Onto Show
Street artists in Berlin say they’ve “hacked” the Showtime series Homeland, sneaking Arabic graffiti critical of the show into scenes by daubing them on sets they were hired to help design.
A group identifying itself as The Arabian Street Artists, including Heba Amin and Caram Kapp, says its anti-Homeland graffiti appeared in the most recent episode of the show, which aired Sunday, October 11. TIME has not been able to independently verify the claims.
Slogans in Arabic such as “Homeland is racist,” “There is no Homeland,” and “This show does not represent the views of the artists” were painted onto sets, the artists said. In a statement posted on Amin’s website, the artists call Homeland “the most bigoted and racist TV series.” The award-winning show has received criticism from some quarters for its depictions of Muslims and the Middle East. TIME has reached out to Showtime and the network said it would soon issue a response to the claims.
The artists say they were hired by the show to add graffiti to lend authenticity to sets in the outskirts of Berlin intended to portray a Syrian refugee camp. “The set decoration had to be completed in two days, for filming on the third,” the artist statement says. “Set designers were too frantic to pay any attention to us; they were busy constructing a hyper-realistic set that addressed everything from the plastic laundry pins to the frayed edges of outdoor plastic curtains. It looked very Middle Eastern and the summer sun and heat helped heighten that illusion. The content of what was written on the walls, however, was of no concern.”
Amin, who identifies herself as “an Egyptian visual artist, researcher and, currently, visiting assistant professor at the American University in Cairo,” has not responded to a request for comment.
Source: time.com