Louis Masai Michel

AN EGYPTIAN VULTURE IN... HILLBROW JOHANNESBURG

So thanks to Disney and other screen presentations, we as the general public have a strange relationship with the vulture.  My first encounters with them were in South America and I was fascinated by watching them circling above in mass, tornado like cones. That was over 12 years ago now and unfortunately all species of vulture have experienced a rapid decline in numbers, 35% each year in fact, since 1999.

Africa is home to three very endangered vultures, one of which is the Egyptian. They cover a greater area than Egypt, finding homes in India, Eastern and Central Africa and also Europe.  There are a few reasons for their decline; the absorption of veterinary antibiotics which suppresses their immune system, declining habitat, urbanisation, a shortage of carrion, which they feed on and a whole host of other problems which they are fighting a losing battle against. The latter has a major knock on effect in the ecosystem, as if the carrion increases but the vulture population continues to decrease, then disease will inevitably become more widely spread. Vultures are imperative for cleaning up the lands death, which is not limited to animals, according to the religious practice of the Parsi people, their dead bodies cannot be buried or burnt because the corpses could pollute the Panchabhootam (earth, water, air, ether and fire). So their bodies are left in a high-rise ‘Tower of Silence’ to be consumed by the scavengers. Vultures were the first scavengers on Earth and are vital to a sustained ecological balance.

I painted this piece with a couple of graff writers from the Demolition Squad. Painting with writers is great because it changes the way that the composition of the piece works. The walls are always much longer and often not as high. We painted in an area, that like most graff or street art related areas in a city, are run down and full of lots of community involvement. This wall was no exception, we had only primed the wall when a lady with her yappy toy dog turned up demanding that we didn’t paint evil things. Over the next hour we heard this from another three or so people and we started to feel a lot of hate. This soon changed as the day progressed and the piece evolved, we eventually won the community over…

Much love to my new Jozi homies, hopefully I’ll get another piece done with these guys before I return to Capetown next week…

the guy taking the photograph above is a sick photographer... 

here is a link to his website...i urge you to take the webtrip over and have a look...hes also coming over to london in a couple months so im sure that we will be painting a few pieces together in london soon...

http://sheldonwins.tumblr.com