ArtBeat
Stretching across the end of November and early December, Ōtautahi hosted a unique urban art festival for the first time, although it did require a closer look. The aptly titled Little Street Art Festival, delivered by Watch This Space, shifted the focus from street art mural festivals to the smaller intervention styled practices of urban art, highlighting the material diversity and possibilities evident in art in the streets. Conceived as a new platform for artists to explore the ways they embed their art in the urban environment, and as an alternative to the increasingly monumental scale of muralism, the festival celebrated surprising remarks over blockbuster landmarks.
A selection of nine projects, created by local artists appeared across the central city, some enduring, others intentionally fleeting, inviting public participation and acquisition. Some of the works served to create reflective encounters, such as Jessie Rawcliffe’s suite of six painterly portraits, located at various spots on New Regent Street, Cathedral Square and High Street. A mix of subtlety, the colour palettes responding to the surrounding environment (whether brick work and painted trim or spray-painted graffiti), and confrontation, the closely cropped works capturing the passing audience in a gaze that subverted the dynamic of viewer and subject.
Deep in the Arts Centre, Dark Ballad’s gothic-inspired woodcut plates invited viewers to consider local trauma, from the impact of colonialism to the ongoing after-effects of the Christchurch Earthquakes, the mix of heritage, damage, and signs of rejuvenation of the surrounding environment heightening the narrative context. On one of Phantom Billsticker’s central city bollards, Meep implored recognition of the disastrous impact of climate change on the Pacific, combining a striking figurative image with illuminating data, drawing on the power of fly-posters and visual elements of protest to illuminate issues and the need for action.
Other projects provided playful whimsy and wonder. Ghostcat and Jacob Yikes’ pair of creations required closer inspection of unexpected sites; cracks and crevices filled with splashes of seeping colour (and in some cases bewildered eyes) in Cathedral Square and along Worcester Boulevard and sculptural mushrooms sprouting from brickwork next to Yikes’ Tuam Street mural tribute to ethno-botanist and mystic Terence McKenna, as if the painting’s details were coming to life. Bloom’s stylised flowers were placed in concrete planter boxes on Rolleston Avenue, quirky surprises that celebrated the importance of unexpected moments of joy. In a damaged light-box on Manchester Street, Ikarus referenced Wayne Youle’s Wish You Were Here, one of the works for which the box was originally created in his urban diorama, the hollowed space now occupied by daring graffiti artists, even if they reached just several inches in height, a microcosm of the wider urban surrounds.
The act of looking was an important element of works by teethlikescrewdrivers and Nathan Ingram. Ingram’s squiggle motif, cut from metal and affixed to fencing across the city, suggested new framings and readings of the city, ephemeral viewfinders that both obscured and revealed. teethlikescrewdrivers’ Pencil Hunt was perhaps the most unique project in the festival, the artist painstakingly creating hundreds of yellow pencils, printed with his moniker and hand-sharpened, then hidden throughout a pencil-shaped route, treasure hunters invited to find and keep one of the creative tools for themselves. Tucked into locations off the beaten path, people found themselves exploring spaces they would normally overlook.
The concept of the Little Street Art Festival was not without issues. Less concerned with ‘bang for your buck’ type productions, the works were also more temporary, either intentionally or because of their tantalising accessibility, a reality that necessitated the short run. Additionally, the difficult balance between authentic intervention and supported creation provided a constant challenge. Yet, at its heart, the festival sought to embed art in our streets at intimate levels, to expose more urban creatives to supported opportunities, and to reconsider the way we experience our cityscape. With its lighter footprint and broad scope, the festival presents an exciting chance for further evolution when it returns in 2024.
DETAILS
The Little Street Art Festival, Ōtautahi Christchurch, Held within a grid encompassing: Rolleston Ave, Armagh St, Manchester St and St Asaph St, 24 November – 4 December 2023. See: www.littlestreetartfestival.co.nz
IMAGES
Reuben Woods, Little Street Art Festival teaser, photograph
Jessie Rawcliffe, Little Street Art Festival, photograph