This is a brief summary of recent articles about street art that I found interesting. I want to demonstrate that street art has the power to bring communities together, stimulate urban regeneration and raise awareness about human rights and political issues.
Urban Regeneration
The Duke of Lancaster has been docked in Flintshire, north Wales since 1979. Now local art collective DuDug want to transform it into a floating gallery. Click here for more images or check out DuDug’s website for more details.
In 2009, Urban Visionary Tony Goldman decided to create the Wynwood Walls, Miami. What began with a series of parking lots, loading docks, and drab rundown factory buildings, became a collection of high caliber murals featuring an array of internationally acclaimed and locally respected Street Artists, Graffiti Writers and Muralists such as Futura and Shepard Fairey among others. Two years later the collection features over thirty artists has expanded to become one of the largest concentrations of commissioned murals in the world.
Community Projects
This spectacular mural in Manchester, UK was painted by Faunagraphic. The mural is part of an international project promoted by Converse called Wall2Wall. The project gives street artists a blank city canvas to celebrate creative expression in some of Europe’s most vibrant cities such as Antwerp, Ghent, Lyon and Barcelona.
In Bristol, UK, local art collective Weapon of Choice have launched an innovative campaign to build a community street art café and creative business space in the heart of the city by sharing the cost online. The building will provide a space for local artists and international graffiti stars to exhibit their work, breathing new life into the declining Old Market quarter of Bristol.
The first of these events will be the biggest Bristol graffiti jam, featuring local writers and special guests from across the UK, since Banksy’s famous ‘Walls On Fire’ event in 1998. The team has pledged to house several youth and creative workshops incorporating not just graffiti but also music production, publishing and business practice.
For more information please check out this article from This is Bristol or help fund the project on Spacehive.
Political Street Art
” I am a human being who wants to portray an idea with a distinctive method, no more, no less.”
Egypt’s January 25 revolution helped bring out the best in raw and potent urban arts, most of all in the graffiti scene in Cairo. This short video gives a brief glimpse into the always evolving street art scene that has gone from strength to strength and become a valuable component in the creative resistance to Egyptian authorities and establishment.
Finally Street Artist, Dan Witz, has teamed up with Amnesty International to launch a campaign called Wailing Walls. The aim is to create disturbing street art to fight political imprisonment and encourage passersby to immediately take action.
To keep up to date with inspiring, political and community street art projects follow The Global Art Experiment on Facebook.
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