It can take some cities centuries to be known around the world for their rich artistic culture – Aberdeen has done it in six years says the man behind Nuart.
And Martyn Reed, curator of Nuart Aberdeen, says the eyes of the art world and beyond are now on the Granite City all year round not just for the four days of the award-winning street art festival which kicks off on Thursday June 8.
“People have got their eye on Aberdeen, people are flying here,” he said, adding that directors of major art museums across Europe are specifically coming to see what Nuart Aberdeen is doing and what it offers.
“Word is seeping out that this is the place to be, not only once a year when the event happens, but all year. Come and have a look, if you can’t make it in June come in July or August.”
“It is just one strand, we have golf, the castles, history and whisky and now we have this culture as well. Some other places have taken 500 years to get there. To do that in six? That’s not bad going.”
This will be a homecoming for Nuart Aberdeen says Martyn Reed
Martyn, who first launched Nuart in Stavanger, says the next four days will feel like a real homecoming for the festival, which first started in 2017 and is staged by Aberdeen Inspired and can now claim to be the best street art festival in the world.
“When you say six years it feels like an inordinate length of time, like we are well established here. But, of course, we had two years of pandemic in between, where we did keep up a presence by surreptitiously putting up posters and other forms of art.
“After last year’s event with the theme of reconnect, where we were flowing a little bit, this year it feels like we are grounded again, it feels like coming home.”
“After last year’s event with the theme of reconnect, where we were flowing a little bit, this year it feels like we are grounded again, it feels like coming home.”
Martyn clearly remembers Nuart Aberdeen’s first outing and his delight in the way the city took the street art festival to its heart.
“When I was first contacted by Aberdeen Inspired for the first festival, I asked for the freedom of the city and it worked amazingly,” he said. “We had been warned about the dour Scot being invented in Aberdeen, but the response was completely the opposite. It was cheers and smiles.
“The second year was beyond anyone’s expectation. The whole city just lifted and rose in a response to visual art. And they still do.”
‘Level of trust’ created by everyone involved in Nuart Aberdeen
And over the years a level of trust has built between all the partners and institutions involved – Nuart, Aberdeen Inspired, Aberdeen City Council, Peacock and Aberdeen Art Gallery – said Martyn.
Add into the mix the building owners who each year agree to have their walls transformed by murals and artworks.
“It does take a lot of convincing to say ‘hey, can we paint your wall?’ and they say ‘what are you going to paint’ and it’s ‘well you have to trust it’s not going to be anything offensive’. But now that’s established and that makes a much more enjoyable production for everyone.
“It shows in how the public responds. It’s coming from the bottom up and not from the top down.”
This year Nuart Aberdeen has a theme of Rewilding, which will work its way into the walls being transformed across city. These will range from massive murals to smaller more intimate works, involving 13 artists from Aberdeen’s own KMG to Jamie Reid, the man who pioneered the artwork of the Sex Pistols and the punk rock movement.
Along with that will be walking tours, public participation events and a rich conference strand of prestigious speakers, artists and cultural leaders exploring the issues around street art and rewilding.
How can Nuart Aberdeen rewild the Granite City?
Martyn says the rewilding theme was inspired by fears over access to green spaces, and also concerns around the climate and the environment working on the metaphor of comparing a meadow full of wildflowers – many seen as weeds – to a manicured Victorian lawn in a grand house.
“Are there things in our art museums we are conserving and looking after that really are the flowers, or maybe they were weeds one day? And they were, they were radical outsider artists who were, over time, accepted and cultivated and presented back to the world as flowers,” he said.
“So how do you rewild a city? Let’s bring loads of artists and creative thinkers and place them in a city to look at it in that context. And the by-product of all this is it increases footfall and democracy to the arts and brings in kids and other demographics that don’t usually engage with art.”
One of the best examples of that might come in the Chalk Don’t Chalk project, where school children from across the city will transform Marischal Square Quad into a jungle of colour and imagination with a massive mural on the ground, led by Aberdeen artist KMG. The aim is to create the largest chalk mural of its kind.
Nuart Aberdeen will leave a rich legacy of new works
But once the weekend is over, Aberdeen will be left with a rich legacy of new works, adding to the colour and vibrancy of all those created before. And the Granite City will also have an economic legacy left by Nuart Aberdeen.
“We have done surveys with Aberdeen Inspired and Aberdeen Chamber Of Commerce that show (Nuart) increases footfall and increase spend. The city is winning European travel awards and being cited in mainstream media as a street art capital,” he said, adding that success was a group effort of everyone involved in the drive to improve Aberdeen’s city centre.
“There are issues around high streets and not just in Aberdeen, but in every Western country. I think we are part of a jigsaw of solutions for some of those challenges cities are facing.”
For more information on Nuart Aberdeen visit aberdeeninspired.com
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