Street art appeared in Europe in the 1980s and immediately gained enormous popularity. Today, frescoes and graffiti are found everywhere: in central squares and outskirts, on the facades of abandoned houses and in prestigious galleries. Due to the popularity of street art, large art galleries and city authorities have begun to organize street art festivals, where they invite artists from all over the world to paint buildings for a decent fee.
During the festivals, thousands of people come to watch the work of masters, attend conferences and have fun. And after the festival, frescoes remain that decorate the city and attract tourists. We will tell you where this summer you can see the works of the best street artists, listen to lectures, learn how to draw graffiti yourself, and then relax at parties and concerts.
Miau in Fansar, Spain
Photo: @ybolsa/Instagram.com
When: July 5-8
Fansara is a town near Valencia, most of whose residents are pensioners. In 2014, the city council proposed inviting artists from all over Europe to attract tourists and enliven the quiet streets. This idea resulted in the street art festival M.I.A.U (which translates to Unfinished Street Art Festival),
where 21 artists from Europe arrived. 4 years later, Fansara has turned into an open-air gallery with hundreds of colorful frescoes, which thousands of tourists come to see. This year, 150 street artists from all over the world will come to the festival, and concerts and lectures will be held in the squares.
Upfest Europe in Bristol, UK
Photo: @luke_holloway85 / @harry_bristol/Instagram.com
When: July 28-30
Upfest is the largest street art festival in Europe, where more than 350 artists come every year. Over the three days of the festival, they will have to paint 10,000 square meters of surfaces in the Bedminster area: a former tobacco factory, walls and roofs of houses, galleries, pubs, double-decker buses and even a church. This will be watched by 50,000 spectators, for whom conferences, workshops, concerts of reggae, hip-hop, funk and soul will be held. Upfest also has a social mission: part of the money earned at the festival will go to the NACOA foundation, which helps children of people with alcohol addiction.
Stockholm Urban Art in Stockholm, Sweden
Photo: @dale_grimshaw/Instagram.com
When: July 14 – August 4
The Stockholm Urban Art Festival is one of the components of the huge street art festival Stockholm Street Fest, which will be held in Stockholm for the 7th time. Musicians, clowns, illusionists and acrobats will perform on the streets of the city, as well as theatrical performances. Cinemas organize free screenings of films by young Scandinavian directors. 160 European artists will come to paint the walls of three districts of the city. There will also be a huge number of master classes for children and adults. Anyone can create graffiti, stencil mural or sculpture.
Bloop International Proactive Art festival in Ibiza, Spain
Photo: @aec_interesnikazki/@bloopfestival/Instagram.com
When: August 23 – September 8
Bloop is an independent festival of street art, music, digital art and gastronomy in the town of San Antonio, Ibiza. Every year, the organizers come up with a theme for the festival, and participants must create a work of art using free technique. It could be street art or an installation, sculpture, painting, photography, or even a virtual exhibition that you can visit using virtual reality glasses.
The motto of the festival is “Art for everyone!”, so all concerts, exhibitions, parties and master classes are free. One of the most popular places of the festival is the Open Air Gallery, which every year provides several walls for painting by the best artists of the festival, thanks to which the gallery’s collection already includes 20 murals from world-famous street artists.
iBug in Chemnitz, Germany
Photo: @patrickrichter.info/@frankiefourfinger/Instagram.com
When: August 24-26, August 31 – September 2
iBug is an independent festival of contemporary art and street art, where about 80 artists from 10 countries come for 2 weekends and create interesting works in abandoned buildings in the industrial area of the city of Chemnitz. The goal of the festival is to revive the industrial areas of the city and turn them into open-air art galleries. The festival is interesting because it invites participants not to work individually, but to create collaborations, mix techniques and styles, resulting in unusual compositions: sculptures made of wood and metal next to frescoes, installations next to graffiti and huge light projections accompanied by electronic music.
Nuart in Stavanger, Norway
Photo: @passatempo_as/Instagram.com
When: September 6-9
The Nuart Festival has been held in Stavanger since 2001. Several dozen artists from all over the world come to it and are offered to create works on a specific topic, which the organizers keep secret until the start of the festival. Artists are provided with sites of all sizes: from the facades of high-rise buildings to telephone booths and storefronts. Many frescoes are not destroyed after the festival ends. Thanks to this, over 18 years, so much work has appeared in the city that guided walks to places with the best street art have become popular in the city. Nuart attracts viewers not only with street art, but also with cultural events: the festival will host film screenings, master classes, conferences, lectures and round tables on history, sociology, urbanism, the influence of media and the role of art in city life. The festival will end with a party at the Tou Scene brewery.
LaBel Valette Fest in Présigny-les-Pins, France
Photo: @adrien_tiski/Instagram.com
When: September 7-9
What distinguishes La Bel Valette from other festivals is that invited artists create murals throughout the summer, living in an artists’ residence located near the castle, and then present them to the audience during the 3 days of the festival. More than 100 artists from 4 continents participate in the festival, who are provided with 10,000 square meters for self-expression. Most of them are involved in street art, but there are also sculptors, musicians, painters and multimedia artists. The most interesting site is the La Valette castle, which is painted in its entirety every year, including the façade. Exhibitions, lectures and master classes will be held in the castle, chapel and adjacent premises, and jazz and hip-hop concerts will be held in the park.
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