festivals
Akumal Arts Fest Commemorates 2022 Edition with Inaugural NFT-4-Good Drop
Akumal Arts Festival celebrated its fifth edition this January, welcoming nearly 100 international artists to the seaside pueblo in Mexico’s Riviera Maya to douse paradise stucco with fresh perspectives and paint—for the first time since November 2019, following a locally-focused edition in 2020 to recenter during the pandemic. “From the first day, it was always …
UPLIFT Skate and Art Festival Brings a Splash of Urban Art to Rotherham’s Town Center
Rotherham’s town center transformed into an urban art playground Feb. 22-24, 2022, with an array of activities designed to bring out the young people of the town for a three-day interactive experience. UPLIFT festival realized a fusion of urban art colliding with Team Great Britain’s (GB) finest skaters and BMXers for a nostalgic look back …
Catching Up With Polish Artist Someart
In June 2019, Estonia hosted Stencibility Street Art Festival in Tartu, its second-largest city. The festival’s website states that it sought to foster street art “in its most authentic quintessential definition.” Stencibility outlined the tenets of such a definition with their manifesto stating that that “(1) public space belongs to everyone who uses it (2) …
Akumal Arts Festival 2019 Themes
This year, Akumal Arts Festival (AAF) invited 130 artists to adorn the town’s many surfaces with murals. In providing inspiration and guidance, they offered the formal theme ‘Climate Change,’ a fitting focus for a festival that takes place in town ripe with natural life. Some artists followed the guidelines, others came armed with their own …
An Overview Of The Second Edition Of Akumal Arts Festival in Akumal, Mexico
November 11th, 2019 concluded the second edition of the annual Akumal Arts Festival (AAF) in Akumal, Mexico. By strict facts, the festival lasted four days and hosted over 130 international artists who painted murals, taught workshops, and participated in both an opening and closing ceremony. Weeks before I disembarked to cover the festival in person, …
NRNY Artsy Murals, New Rochelle, NY. November, 2019
Street Art for Mankind (SAM) is a nonprofit organization which strongly believes in the ability of art to trigger social change. SAM acts as amplifiers of the fight against child trafficking through street art. With the support of 50+ prominent international street artists, SAM produces exhibitions, live performances and murals around the world to bring …
2019 Nuart Festival Recap
“There is some kind of paradoxes at work here, you want to preserve graffiti as something wild and not institutionalized, but at the same time see the creativity within it,” says Malcolm Jacobson, of Stockholm University’s Sociology Department, in the recap film for Nuart Festival’s 19th edition. “I think Nuart has been very good at …
Building A Bridge In A Divided Community Amid Spike In Tourism Industry
Mural festivals are a powerful force in today’s artistic era. They can be divisive or unifying, because street art is a facet of placemaking, a sort of ‘face’ each community presents to its residents and visitors. As such, concrete mission statements from festivals must guide this force, and those missions determine a community’s tone. Akumal …
The Tunnels: An Experimental Film That Pushes The Boundaries Between Documentation, Critical Review & Video Art.
“The Tunnels”, by MZM Projects is an experimental film that pushes the boundaries between documentation, critical review and video art. It is dedicated to “Brand New, You’re Retro” exhibition that took place at the former brewery tunnels (now Tou Scene Centre for Contemporary Arts) in Stavanger (Norway) as a part of Nuart Festival 2019. “Brand New, …
Waterford Walls Festival 2019, Ireland
Waterford is Ireland’s oldest town, situated in the South East of the country. It is home to the largest collection of medieval defensive towers and walls in Ireland dating back to the 13th Century. It was attacked by the Normans, led by Richard Le Clare in 1170. Waterford has a Viking Triangle, which has since …
FLINT x NOLA: A Cultural Exchange Between Flint & New Orleans
The Flint Public Art Project’s Executive Director, Joe Schipani, is teaming up with Street Art Specialist, Kady Yellow, CO_labs, and KOBRA Paint to announce a spray paint cultural exchange between Flint, MI and New Orleans, LA called FLINT x NOLA. What Does It Mean To Bring Two Cities Together? Both Flint and New Orleans are …
IPAF’s 8th Edition Concluded In Martinique July 2019
Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Martinique on behalf of Europe during his fourth voyage in 1502. Encyclopedia Britannica writes that it was at this time that the island received its current name, which “is probably a corruption of the Indian name Madiana (“Island of Flowers”) or Madinina (“Fertile Island with Luxuriant Vegetation”), as reputedly …