The #NotACrime global street art campaign teamed up with curators and street artists in New York City, as well as in Brazil, South Africa, and Australia, to produce murals that raise awareness of Iran’s human rights crisis.
The Iranian government continues to violate the rights of its own citizens. The #NotACrime initiative looks at two issues in particular: the plight of Iran’s journalists, who face arbitrary arrest and intimidation, and the government’s refusal to allow the Baha’i religious minority pursue further education.
IranWire's new series featuring the artists and their murals will continue over the coming months as the #NotACrime project spreads to more cities around the world.
The corner of Lexington Avenue and 24th Street in Manhattan has become a prime location for raising awareness about Iran’s human rights crisis.
Painted by Italian street artist Jacopo Ceccarelli, also known as “2501”, an impressive four-story mural depicts birds breaking free from a cage, symbolizing the many journalists, writers and artists who are held behind bars in Iran for expressing themselves freely.
“It’s a really simple idea,” Ceccarelli explains. “It started from the idea of jail, of being incarcerated. The first sketch was of birds coming out of a kind of a prism cage. But when I started painting the mural, the idea got more abstract. Now you have a sensation of birds, more than actual birds. But the whole idea is the same: the idea of movement and freedom.”
The Italian artist began doing graffiti at the age of 14. He later moved to Brazil to study the South American approach to street art, which is where he developed his artistic style – depicting nature through the abstract, just like his mural on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 24th Street.
The artwork, which he named “Halfway Out” is a part of the #NotACrime campaign – New York City’s most ambitious mural art project to date – which aims at prompting conversations about human rights violations in Iran.
“It was natural for me to join the cause of promoting freedom of expression,” Ceccarelli says. “Many of my friends have been incarcerated in Italy for being activists, some for months, some for years. So my life has been touched by the situation.”
Ceccarelli identifies himself more as an activist than an artist; for him the idea of an artist is outdated.
“I don’t really like how artists are considered to be someone who is special,” he says. “I think everyone, in reality, is creative, and in a certain way we are all artists. It’s just that we are not trained to be artists, or we were never in the right situation to be free to express ourselves; time-wise, money-wise, or culture-wise.”
Ceccarelli’s art, he explains, is about more than just painting a wall; it’s about taking action. And this approach shines through all his work – including his contribution to the #NotACrime campaign. Although he admits the art might not have a direct impact on the situation in Iran.
“But what I am trying to do is to raise a discussion, and that is an important part of it. The most important thing is communicating to people what’s happening,“ he says.
And passers-by, who can hardly miss the huge mural, agree: “Being steps away from more than one college campus, the street art should generate dialogue,” says Brian Krebs, a local resident. “Education is a necessity; awareness is education.”
Related articles:
#NotACrime: Alexandre Keto in New York
#NotACrime Global Street Art: Johannesburg
#NotACrime: A Global street art project for human rights in Iran
#NotACrime Street Art Provokes Debate in NYC
#NotACrime Launches Street Art Campaign in NYC to Expose Human Rights Abuses in Iran
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