BRILLOVOX; TARIK SALEH and AKAY interview > Swedish

BRILLOVOX youtube channel Brillo VOX about street art with Tarik Saleh and AKAY on February 22nd The two street artists, Tarik and AKAY have a past that has continued to this day. Hear more about their thoughts on art and their common past that spans over four decades. Akay, born in 1969, is a street artist raised, and mainly active in Stockholm. Akay started painting graffiti in the mid-1980s and continued doing so until the early 1990s. Starting in 1997, he mainly covered Stockholm but also other major cities worldwide with posters advertising the invented ideology Akayism. Akay's work up to 2017 is documented in the book “AKAY and all his friends” by Rae. “Every time something is done on the street there is a level of interaction involved. Maybe its not the interaction we hoped for or expected, but every project is an invitation to respond. Even if the response is someone taking down what has been offered up.” — AKAY Tarik Saleh, born in 1972 in Stockholm, is a Swedish journalist, artist, film director and screenwriter. Initially Tarik made his name as a graffiti artist. Among other things, in 1989 he created the iconic mural Fascinate in Bromsten together with the graffiti painter Circle. Fascinate was Sweden's oldest still preserved larger graffiti painting. It was located in Bromsten's industrial area in Stockholm. The wall with the painting was demolished in 2021. In the early 1990s, Tarik Saleh sought his father's country of origin, Egypt, where he studied at art school in Alexandria and co-founded the magazine Alive together with Akay. Tarik grew up in an artist environment, his father hung out with Hasse Alfredson and Jan Lööf and his mother is friends with Karin Mamma Andersson and Jockum Nordström. It was above all the graffiti that became Tarik's means of expression, and now that film has become his main means of expression, he continues to use terms that have to do with his previous practice. “I would like to create something small, like painting a picture or writing a novel. But I’m already thinking about new big projects and it’s really scary, because I know I’ll regret it. It is over. Because I have seen that wall and then I have to fill it with my painting.” — Tarik Saleh

RELATED LINKS; Mega Hip Hop Jam Circus Oslo 1988 ft. Breaking; Throw Down Rockers, Adam L, Knut Yrvin / Graffiti; Vandals In Motion and All In One AND All in One crew 10 years UKS, Oslo 1998 (with lots more links)