Street Dreams Festival in Essen-Katernberg Removes a Mural by Bastardilla Referring to the Symbol of the Palestinian Key and the Nakba

On October 30, 2023, a mural painted by Bastardilla during the Street Dreams Festival in Essen-Katernberg was erased four days after its completion. The mural depicted a character with a scarf covering their head holding a golden key in their right hand. The key referred to the one that many Palestinians keep or hang around their necks as an expression of hope and the right to return to lands that were taken away during the Nakba of 1948.

The festival team expressed concern that the mural could be “misinterpreted”, and feared losing their financial stability and social credibility. After discussing whether to modify the “problematic” part of the mural – the key – or remove the mural entirely, they decided to cover it with white paint. This happened as soon as Bastardilla, an international guest who was invited to take part in the festival, left Germany. The social media record of Bastardilla’s participation in the festival was also removed. One of the curators left the festival team after this decision in protest against censorship.

Bastardilla, a Colombian urban artist, asked the followers of her Instagram page to download, share and disseminate the painting as an act of resistance. She wrote that Palestinian dignity must be kept alive. In her post, she quoted a text by Palestinian poet, Heba Abu Nada, written a couple of days before she was killed in Gaza in October 2023: “If we die, know that we are satisfied and steadfast, and tell the world, on our behalf, that we are righteous people, on the side of truth.”