Massive thanks to those who gave us their support this year, especially Format, Clinic 116, Magazine Gallery and our new buddies Burger Theory for letting us paint their truck! Thanks also to Kate Gagliardi for her amazing mural, as well as Store, Sam Evans and Joshua Smith for taking the workshops and all the great artists who took part in the exhibition. But most of all, thanks to all the masses of people who showed up to the events and made it all worthwhile.

For those who couldn’t make it, or those who just want to re-live the fun times, here’s a brief overview of what went down.

2011 Street Dreams / Format Mural

Like Marilyn, Jimi, Kurt, Biggie and Tupac, we thought that it would be best if last year’s mural was killed in its prime. With the blessing of the original artists, we put on the buffing overalls and did the grizzly deed.

Kate Gagliardi was chosen to carry the flame, and with the help of a couple of her mates, she managed to complete the wall in just a few days. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can check out the finished product outside Format (Peel Street, Adelaide).

Don’t leave it too long though… in the true nature of street art, this too won’t be around for ever…

Walking Tour

If you thought that last year’s walking tour was big, you should have seen this one! This year tour guide Chris Tamm’s well worn shoes were filled by Street Dreams 2011 director Peter Drew. It was encouraging to see the amount of new work in the city this year – if you missed out, you could always take yourself on a self guided tour by using our map. Special thanks to Jake One for bringing his stereo for that bit of ghetto flavour.

Dumpster Biennale

With 30 odd model dumpsters, a pile of 2D peices and a handful of custom decks, the Dumpster Biennale was a massive success. And who else to officialy open the exhibition but our city’s mayor, Stephen Yarwood, who said the following:

“This is the start. I don’t want to see grey walls in our city that basically tell our artists we don’t care about them and they should just piss off to Melbourne. What I want to do is find these opportunities. We’re doing council walls; I bet you have friends in the city who have got blank walls. You need to talk to them, you need to pressure them, you need to get them onside because it is those types of opportninities that will bring this city to life.”

Highlights included Mr Tomek’s ‘Beatster’ dumpster (complete with amp and speakers), Gary Seaman’s beautiful diaroma, Overunder’s Ashes to Oilbars and Timothy Tuppance’s see-through goldfish dumpster. If you missed it, STAY TUNED for photos of the work and a chance to buy unsold peices online.

Pimp Yo T-Shirt Party

White T-Shirts, cheap Asahi, markers and more stencils than you can poke a can at. Oh, and did we mention there was a big arse truck being painted out the front? Fun times.

Workshops

As always, the workshops were fun for all involved. Adelaide stencil artist extraordinaire Joshua Smith took the stencil workshop, followed by Ankles and Peter Drew’s paste-up workshop. Lastly, aerosol artists Store and Sam Evans imparted some of their finely honed skills and knowledge.

Open Air Cinema

What better way to relax at the end of a busy weekend than to sit back and watch Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop. In somebody’s driveway. Our open air cinema was a lot of fun, and we hope to bring you another guerilla screening sometime soon.

So that’s it – if anyone has any photos of the events they’d like to share with us, you can post them on our facebook page, our flickr group or email them to us at info@streetdreams.com.au – we’d love to see them!

Featured artists include…

Ages, Akems, Albino, Ankles, CWR, Epik, Fredrock, Hams, Ishk, James Dodd, James Dodd, J2SKE, Kab101, NME, Opted, Orbs, Perish, Poise, Pore, Reach, Riet, SEARious Jones, Seb, Sync, Tarns, Thorts and Tomb.

In an email that nearly made Mr Sloppy fall of his bar stool, NY artists OverUnder and White Cocoa asked us if they could be involved in this year’s dumpster exhibition. For the uninitiated, the dumpster exhibition involves artists customising laser-cut model dumpsters like these. What we didn’t expect was OverUnder to set fire to one and turn the ashes into oil pastels! You can see the entire process his amazing video below:

Ashes to Oil Bars from Miss Tint on Vimeo.

Come along at 6pm this Saturday to see this work and a whole truckload of others at Magazine Gallery, 1 Clubhouse Lane, Adelaide.

Featured artists include: Timba Smits (UK), OverUnder (NYC), White Cocoa (NYC), Fantasista Utamaro (JPN), Said Dodkins (Mex), Satta van Daal (MELB), Numskull (SYD), Drewfunk (MELB), Creepy (PRTH), Bunkwaa (SYD), Crash (SYD), Sync (ADL), Fredrock (ADL), Store (ADL), Benzo (ADL), Koven (ADL), Jules (ADL), Ankles (ADL), John Engelhardt (ADL), Gary Seaman (ADL), Peter Drew (ADL), Stoops (ADL), Screamdance (ADL), Josh Smith (ADL), Nickas (ADL), Matt Stuckey (ADL), Joel VDK (ADL), Kate Gagliardi (ADL), JakeOne (ADL), Remi (ADL), Timothy Tuppence (ADL), Tomek (ADL), JakeTwo (ADL) and more…

Proudly sponsored by Format, Clinic 116 & Magazine
http://format.net.au/
http://clinic116.com/

Street Dreams 2011 from Mr Sloppy on Vimeo.

But in all seriousness, Stephen seems to have a good CV for bringing Adelaide kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Having studied, lectured and worked in town planning for years, he has some pretty cool ideas for our city.

He’s into his sustainability, is something of a technology nut, has a thing for bikes and public transport, and – surprisingly – is a public supporter of street art.

Earlier this year , Steve got an unlikely coalition of street artists, writers and mural artists in a room together. The outcome was the $40,000 of extra annual funding for public art – some of the results of which can be seen around Adelaide already.

So it will be interesting to see how the next few years pan out. Usually, change occurs in cities because the people make stuff happen. Sometimes mayors and councils stand in the way; other times they can can help to make the process easier. Let’s hope for the latter.

If you’re interested in attending, check out the website. Can’t make it? Watch the video here.

This year we have the aforementioned Peter Drew stepping in as coordinator. The dates will be 18th – 21st Feb 2011 and the venue will once again be the Format venue on Peel St.

It’s still early days at this stage, but we can mention a few of the planned highlights. It’s looking like we’ll see a return of the infamous T-shirt party. Expect a spanking new mural – artist(s) TBA. It’s safe to assume there will be another exhibition. Plus, we’ll be screening a graffiti flick or two – outdoor cinema style!

With the council’s annual budget meeting coming up, he suggested we put together an official proposal to request $40,000 specifically for murals.

Artist Seb Humphreys put his hand up to lead the proposal, with help from a range of other people, including Nish & Annemarie from Carclew, Adam from Cold Krush, Benzo, Store and Fredrock from Toy Soldiers, Matt Stuckey, and ourselves. In the proposal we outlined how increased council spending on murals would benefit the city and fit with the council’s objectives for 2010-2011. On the night of the council budget meeting, Seb gave a talk and answered questions from the Mayor and councilors. Peter Drew then did the same.

Then, last week, we received the news that the proposal had been approved!

So expect to see a bit more colour on those grey Adelaide walls. All of us here at Street Dreams give our thanks the people listed above, especially Seb, whose hard work and motivation really made this a success.

Now begins the process of working with the council to decide how to facilitate the whole thing…