Brisbane is a city of many faces. Innovative academia, a vibrant art scene and outdoors and athletic lifestyles rub shoulders seamlessly, while pubs thrive alongside high-society parties and fine international dining, and grunge meets rural grit and urban chic.
Another facet of Brisbane’s identity, which has been gaining ground and coming to the forefront of the city’s creative scene since 2015, is street art.
Though you may not necessarily notice as you go about your day, Brisbane’s walls, pillars, and bridges are covered in lively and sometimes provocative pieces of artwork, many by local artists. This artistic outburst is encouraged and supported by the Brisbane City Council, which sees it as a chance to build a collaborative and positive relationship between local creatives and the wider community, as well as an effective way of embellishing the city.
The Council’s key projects regarding street art are the Artforce community project, through which local artists create original pieces on the city’s thousands of traffic signal boxes, and Brisbane Canvas, a series of council-commissioned pieces of artwork around the city.
The Council sees this collaboration with local artists as an essential way of bringing everyday structures to life and creating a city that is unique and colourful, somewhere that people are both happy to live in and keen to visit.
The Brisbane Canvas project is always growing, and the council website provides you with details of locations so that you can admire these pieces in situ.
Some of my personal highlights include David Houghton’s Froglife, at Bridgeman Downs, Guido Van Helten’s Untitled on Boundary Street, Jess Kease’s Tropical Flora at the Thornton Street underpass in Kangaroo Point, and Frank and Mimi’s If Only You Knew in Arch Lane.
When the city is your canvas, the interaction between artist and location is all the more intense and purposeful, creating a strong bond between the structure, the artist, and the audience, who must visit the site itself to understand the artwork fully, rather than merely appreciating it from a photograph.
If you’d like to know more, get in touch with Urban Smarts Project, and if you’re a resident of Brisbane City, apply and see if they approve your designs!
Street art does as street art will do, and the canvas that is Brisbane city is continuously evolving around and beyond the Council’s influence. Street art aficionados have designed full-blown street art walking tours to take you around the city’s not-so-council-approved highlights (https://blog.queensland.com/2015/09/07/brisbane-street-art/; https://www.weekendnotes.com/top-graffiti-and-street-art-spots-brisbane/), and the Brisbane City Greeters also know the best spots if you request a street art-themed tour from them at the Tourist Information Centre or online (https://www.visitbrisbane.com.au/brisbane-greeters?sc_lang=en-au).
It’s beautiful that the creative impulses of independent artists and the desires of the Council can coincide and collaborate in such organic and symbiotic ways.
Brisbane City Council also shows its support for the local artist community through its patronage of the Brisbane Street Art Festival (BSAF), alongside other state and local organisations, commercial enterprises, and academic institutions.
Since 2016, BSAF has brought local, national, and international artists together to build on Brisbane’s cultural identity as a creative’s city, boasting Australia’s most extensive street art festival programme. This year, the programme has doubled in size and diversity, and promises to deliver art and excitement as never before. Over two weeks, from the 4th to the 19th of May 2019, Brisbane will be abuzz with live mural art, music and theatre performances, exhibitions, master classes, and workshops. With something for everyone, this year’s BSAF is a must-do in Brisbane. The best part of BSAF is that it’s free for everyone to attend!
One of the festival’s strengths is their cooperation with local institutions, bringing together diverse aspects of life in Brisbane and providing a model of collaboration and unity of purpose.
Last year, QUT became a canvas for Mexican artist Said Dokins at their Garden’s Point Campus, and continuing their partnership with BSAF, will be hosting an Argentinian duo at their Kelvin Grove Campus this year. Medianeras have been embellishing streets worldwide for over ten years and have participated in countless festivals, so they’re sure to be worth watching as they paint our city!
The festival is also known for supporting local talent, and one of this year’s most challenging canvases, ten pillars under the AirTrain railway at the Toombul centre, goes to proud Brissy local Leans, an artist who is famous for his abstract re-interpretations of architectural features. His live mural show is guaranteed to be captivating as his abstract architectural style meets physical architectural features. As well as this, throughout the festival West End’s West Village will be transformed into a street art gallery, where local works of all shapes and sizes will adorn the walls and be available for the public to admire. The exhibition also includes several notable interstate and international artists and is the ideal way to immerse oneself in the diversity and pertinence of street art.
Projects like Artforce, Brisbane Canvas, and BSAF bring together diverse facets of Brisbane’s society, strengthening community ties and helping to increase social capital amongst various groups. Channelling the creative energy of such a wide range of artists and institutions into city-wide projects can only help strengthen Brisbane’s community and cohesion, all the while embellishing a living environment we already love.