Dubai sets record for worlds longest graffiti wall

Located at Jumeirah Beach Park, falcons, camels and scenes from Dubai life drawn over a 2.2454km-long wall has clinched a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.

The graffiti scroll called The Rehlatna, or Our Journey, that brought together the talents of national and international graffiti artists to complete the world’s longest graffiti wall, has broken the Guinness World Record for the longest graffiti scroll at 2.2454km.

It intended to represent the history of the UAE, and is an art plan commissioned specially by Shaikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Executive Council.

To create the scroll, nearly 150 international artists used over 7,000 cans of eco-friendly spray paint of different colours to create a work of art fit for the upcoming 43rd National Day.

Graffiti artists are usually known by their ‘tags’, or their artist names. One such artist, who goes by the name Asylum is part of a group of six artists from LA who had come down for the event. “We’re called ICU,” he said. “There’s six of us, two from San Francisco, four from LA.” Asylum’s most frequent use of colour was a spray can called ‘transparent black’. He worked long hours on the portraiture of an Arab lady in black hijab, with very well defined eyes, and long, tapering fingers, with nails. Asylum was taking a break while his colleagues (named Dcypher, Swank, Taz and Vogue) etched some more.

Eagles, camels, scenes from Dubai life, the Metro, sand dunes, silhouettes of the Burj, Arabic lettering, and even scorpions — all in various colours were sprayed on the 2.2454km-long wall stretch of graffiti near Jumeirah Beach Park.

• UAE