We’ve been waiting for the official round-up video to give you the final look at the murals, installations, and interventions created through Stavanger during the 19th Nuart Festival which took place this past September. With a series of murals and public interventions, 0.5 kilometers of wall space for their indoor show at Tou Scene (covered), the European premiere of Martha: A Picture Story in the presence of Martha Cooper (interviewed) alongside the director Selina Miles, and a series of academic talks, debates, and presentations, Nuart raised the bar once again, only one year ahead of the big 20th anniversary edition.
Curated around the theme Brand New, You’re Retro, the festival once again produced a range of groundbreaking works, as well as introduced a list of new names working within the street art realm to the wider audience. From Lebanon-based Jad El Khoury (who brought a breeze from his breathtaking Burj el Hawa (Tower of the Wind) installation in Beirut), to Paul Harfleet (who introduced the poignant and striking The Pansy Project), all the way to notorious graffiti bandits 1UP Crew (who ended up painting a commissioned work on local airport building), Nuart once again found a way to present the always fresh and always surprising face of Street Art. Touching the subjects of borders (Hyuro), refugee crisis (Jofre Oliveras) – seen above, global warming and climate change (Edwin and Dr D), mischievous youth (Dotmasters), advertising (OX), the relationship of Street Art and graffiti (Nuno Viegas), as well as classic art and street art (Julio Anaya Cabanding), the festival not only showed its cultural but also social relevance.
“This year, we focus on the evocative intersection of memory and the city, and the role of art on the streets in unraveling and reworking not only the city’s collective memories but also the cultures. New takes on old forms, graffiti merging with street art, classicism with vandalism, the advertising of subvertising, gentrification, rights to the city and in the case of one artist, rights to life itself. ” Nurt organizers introduced this year’s edition with these words back in August, and they didn’t fail to deliver on their promises.
Photo credit: Ian Cox, Brian Tallman, and Runa Andersen.
