Fast food giant McDonald's have sparked outrage by painting over a beloved Cardiff mural to make way for a burger advert.
The My City, My Shirt mural was painted on James Street in Butetown in April last year, as part of a project of the same name organised by Cardiff creatives Yusuf Ismail and Shawqi Hasson, which aims to encourage more people of colour to connect with their city and football club.
Designed to celebrate the diversity of the capital, it featured mother-of-two Maimuna Yoncana, originally from Guinea-Bissau, wearing a Cardiff City shirt and cradling her baby bump.
But the artwork was painted over completely on Saturday morning (January 22) to make way for a promotional advert for a new McDonald's burger.
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While McDonald's have since said they were "unaware" of the mural, Yusuf, who, together with Shawqi and street artist Bradley Rmer, helped bring the mural to life, said he was "absolutely heartbroken" to see it painted over at all.
"It's just appalling," he said. "That mural means so much to the local community, and for me it showed Cardiff in a new light, coming out of the pandemic and on the back on the Black Lives Matter movement.
"That picture showed that we are historically a very multicultural city - and for it to be painted over is just really, really embarrassing.
"It's not just an insult to us, it's an insult to the whole city."
In response to a tweet criticising the move, a spokesperson for McDonald's said they had instructed the artist to repaint the mural on the side of Mischief's bar.
They said: "The site was hired by a third party working with the artist who painted the original mural. We were unaware of what was on the site prior to our installation and have instructed the artist to repaint his original mural immediately.
Yusuf said that McDonald's had contacted him days before the work began, and were originally interested in the site of another My Shirt mural - a huge depiction of 22-year-old Nicole Ready donning a yellow Wales away shirt on the side of La Pantera on Quay Street in the city centre.
The mural of Maimuna on James Street, he says, was never offered up as a potential space for the fast food giant's new ad campaign.
"We were told on Thursday that they had their eye on Quay Street, where we have our mural of Nicole," Yusuf said. "They were planning to use that, so they gave us a heads up.
"We thought, well that campaign is over, so it’s okay. It’s a bit frustrating but we’ll move on - it is an advertising wall after all. But then I got a call the next day telling me that they've changed their mind and want the one in Butetown.
"I explained to them that there was a lot more involved in this mural. Firstly, it means so much to the community, secondly it got racially vandalised and thirdly, we’re already in a bit of a battle to try and sort that out. All that information was relayed to them, and we told them that surely they could find another wall - but they’ve gone ahead with it.
"We had nothing to do with this. They had a choice, but this wasn’t ever an option, and we made that clear," he added. "There’s not even a McDonald’s in the vicinity of James Street, it makes no sense and local people are outraged. To paint over it in mustard yellow, it's absolutely awful.
Yusuf said that while the decision was "insensitive" and "embarrassing", it was also not that surprising.
"The fact of the matter is that in any other city, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leicester - this wouldn’t have been allowed. We’ve worked in all of these cities in the last few months and this would never ever have happened. But companies know they can get away with it in Cardiff."
He added that the move sent out the wrong message to budding artists in the local area.
"We’re trying to spark a bit of change," he said. "Right now. we're working on a project in James Street where we’re getting first time artists and local talent working on some holdings which are directly facing the mural.
"But now this is happening right in front of them - what message does that send out? It’s so, so embarrassing and wrong."
Butetown resident Cathy Owens said the loss of the artwork was "terrible", calling it the "best mural in Cardiff".
"It's an amazing piece of public art and a celebration of the diversity of the city," she said. "To lose it to an advertising campaign is absolutely dreadful. It was the best piece of art I've seen for years in Cardiff.
"It's gone now, but we have to try and salvage something and get McDonalds to respond in a positive way and provide more opportunities for communities like Butetown."
In October, the mural was defaced in a hate crime, with white paint thrown over it from the pavement. A police investigation was launched, while a GoFundMe page was set up to help restore it.
Back in April, Yusuf told WalesOnline that Maimuna - the mural's subject - was "the embodiment" of their project to celebrate diversity in the capital.
He said: “My City My Shirt is an identity thing. Shawqi is Yemeni and he is from Cardiff, I’m Somali and I’m from Cardiff. Growing up we didn't understand dual heritage, I didn’t know if I was from Somaliland or Wales.
"Being a football fan is about an identity, looking at a club and looking at that club and identifying with what that club represents, it forms your identity. Maimuna is the embodiment of the entire project. She came from Guinea-Bissau seeking a new life, she came on a recommendation from a family member and loves this place."
He added: "I wanted something in a public space where it’s very visible. We wanted people to see the step-by-step process behind it, to demystify it and show we’re from the community. I wanted people to come over and speak to us, interrogate us.
"In the climate we’re living in today, post pandemic, post Black Lives Matter, the situation where woman are understanding sexual abuse being normalised. We’re living in very interesting time, these are things that need to be happening up and down in various different spaces."
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