A little while back, Adelaide city councilor Stephen Yarwood invited a wide-ranging group of street artists, writers and mural artists to join him in a bit of a chat about public art in our city. As well as explaining his plan to run as mayor in the upcoming council elections, he expressed his enthusiasm for street art. Turns out that he is keen to see a vast and rapid increase in the amount of council supported murals and other forms of public art, and was hoping for our input and support.

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…

 

 

 

After his much appreciated assistance with the 2010 Street Dreams festival, we’re happy to be officially joined by Adelaide’s favourite street art poster boy Peter Drew.

For those who don’t know, Peter is the man behind this city’s large collection of bicycle themed street art and is the creator of the popular ‘Adelaide Street Art‘ Facebook group. He’s also something of a fine artist, having exhibited work at you know, proper galleries and stuff!

Peter helped us out with the planning and execution of some of the last festival’s events including the walking tour and the paste-up workshop. You no doubt would have seen some of his ‘Einstein on a bike‘ paste-ups decorating the format venue.

So welcome Peter – nice to have you on team.

 

 

 

Just finished putting together a video wrap up of Street Dreams 2010. Includes photos and footage of all the festival events, as well as interviews with us coordinators. Check it out:

After the success of the Street Dreams festival, the Adelaide City Council approached us to organise some council funded public art. As a section of pavement in Rundle Street is going to be ripped up in a few months, they decided they could be a bit adventurous and have a mural painted on it in the meantime.

We got together artists Chris Edser, Stoops, Gary Seaman, Sam Evans, Joshua Smith and our very own Ankle, and spent a very long and exhausting day yesterday painting it. We received many positive responses from passers by – one older lady told us that she was “glad to see the council putting money into something worthwhile”.

 

 

 

What we were not expecting was a phone call the next morning from our reporter friend Farin Foster from InDaily informing us that the mural was GONE!

She told us that the council’s graffiti removal team spotted the mural, decided it was illegal, and spent the wee hours of the morning flushing it down the gutter with high pressure hoses. So began a hectic day of phone calls between ourselves, the media, the council and the artists. We were contacted by and gave interviews to Channel 10, the ABC, the Advertiser and, as mentioned above, Farin from InDaily who broke the story.

In the council’s defence, they were very embarrassed and apologetic, and were keen to ensure that nothing like this happens again. It turns out that the internal communications between the public art, development and planning and graffiti removal team were not quite as tight as they should be. Hopefully a lesson has been learned…

Ankle, Tim, Simon and myself would like to thank the following people for making Street Dreams 2010 possible…

JB Seed – the main source of funding for this festival. Thanks for the support, and for seeing the potential for Street Dreams.

Format – thanks for not only giving us a venue, but for helping us out so much both in the planning and running of the events. Thanks especially to Ianto Ware and Sam Rodgers for all their help and support.

Clinic 116 – cheers to Justin for getting us free paint courtesy of Montana! You guys are the best! Thanks also for turning up right back in the early planning stages.

Chris Tamm – thanks once again for the epic street art tour effort, and then for hanging around and helping out with the other events. Hope you enjoyed the trip.

Carclew – cheers for the use of the GRL projector bike, and thanks to Luku for coming down and helping out. Also thanks to Lachlan Tetlow-Stuart for lending us his crazy projection bombing gear.

Stoops – thanks for putting in all the time you did with the mural, the live art – you went above and beyond the call of duty mate.

Peter Drew – thanks for your efforts with the workshop and walking tour, both with the planning and on the day. We also appreciated your photography of the events when we were too busy to do it ourselves.

Sam Evans – live art, workshop, cheers mate.

Thanks to Store for his help with the workshop and mural. In fact thanks to all the artists who worked on the mural – Store, Gary Seaman, Fredrock, Benzo and Stoops.

Cheers to Joshua Smith for his workshop skills.

And of course thanks as always to John “Badjonni” Goodridge for taking photos.

Lastly, thanks to our partners Steph, Eliza and Emily for putting up with this whole thing!

Phew. Well, that’s it. The 2010 Street Dreams Adelaide Urban Art Festival is over. For those who couldn’t make it, here’s a quick rundown of how it panned out…

The first event saw Chris Tamm come down from Sydney to lead our ‘Ghosts’ street art tour. We were amazed by the turnout – somewhere in the vicinity of 70 odd people. It showed us that there is a wide interest in street art and graffiti among our fellow Adelaidians. After dark we resurrected street art of years gone by with the help of the GRL projector bike.

 

 

 

Friday’s opening night was a pretty laid back event with street art and graffiti projections, some live art by Stoops and Sam Evans, and a bit of street foursquare (the old ball game you played in primary school, not the location-aware social network…)

 

 

 

With the generous support from our friends at Montana and Clinic 116, and after a white-knuckle, last minute approval from the landlady, the Peel St Format Venue mural was good to go. Featuring the work of Benzo, Store, Fredrock, Gary Seaman and Stoops, work started Saturday morning, but due to rain, had to be continued the following day. Despite the weather, the event still drew a good crowd of young and old.

 

 

 

We also had the Art Jam running next door to the mural where anyone was free to come along and have a spray. The offer was taken up by a range of people, from teenagers to established writers.

 

 

 

Live bands + cheap drinks + paint + stencils + white t-shirts = t-shirt party. Big turnout. Fun time had by all.

 

 

 

Sunday morning began with a stencil workshop (run by Joshua Smith and Matt Walker), followed by a paste-up workshop (run by Peter Drew and Ankle) and finally, an aerosol workshop (run by Store and Sam Evans). Attendees ranged from kids to adults.

 

 

 

The final event was the dumpster exhibition. For those who don’t know the story, we designed and built laser cut MDF model dumpsters and sent them to artists to customise. The final line up included Benzo, Vans, Nish, Store, Stoops, Koven, Sam Evans, Tarns, Gary Seaman, Ankle, Adlib, Roger, Joshua Smith, Treehouse, Nickas, Tomek, Clinic116, and interstaters Beastman (Sydney) & Jumbo (Sydney).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Street Art & Graffiti Workshops – from 10am
Come down to any of the five different workshops and learn the underground techniques for making your very own type of street art. We’ve got classes for every method of making your mark on the street, and all lead by the very best in their field. This experience won’t come around so often, so get in early cos places are limited.
$10 per workshop. All materials provided.

10.00am – STENCILING
>> Joshua Smith & Matt Walker

11.30am – WHEATPASTING
>> Peter Drew & Ankle

1.30pm – AEROSOL GRAFFITI
>> Store & Sam Evans

 

 

 

The Dumpsters Exhibition – 6pm
If after 4 huge days you still think street art is all a big pile of rubbish, come check out how two-dozen plus artists can transform the disregarded modern trash receptacle.

We’ve hand-built 25 model dumpsters, gave them out to the best of Adelaide graffiti and street artists (plus a few interstate talents) to customise with their unique thing. Don’t miss this rare chance to snatch up some street talent at this ONE NIGHT ONLY show!!

Featuring BENZO, VANS, NISH, STORE, STOOPS, KOVEN, SAM EVANS, TARNS, GARY SEAMAN, ANKLE, ADLIB, ROGER, JOSHUA SMITH, TREEHOUSE, NICKAS, TOMEK, CLINIC116, with interstaters BEASTMAN (SYD) & JUMBO (SYD).

This Saturday (06.03.2010).

Live Mural & Art Jam – 11am
As much as we all love a shiny blue POLITES sign around every corner of our fine, grey town, there’s just something missing… We got our heads down and put together a legal wall for Adelaide’s latest underground venue, Format! We’ll have the ladders out with some of the best talent Adelaide is known for, with great props to our artists, BENZO, STORE, FREDROCK, STOOPS & GARY SEAMAN. Come watch live just how they do their thing!

And right on the sidelines, its an open-invitation jam for anyone and everyone who wants to have a spray. We’ve got boards set-up for you to make a mark, whether you know what you’re doing or not. We’ve got the materials lined up, you come knock them down!

T-Shirt Party – 9pm
So do it yourself huh? You could just get yourself down to LAX and buy some trendy illustrated shirt. OR – DIY style – you go to Target, find the cheapest white tee (I suggest Bonds, always a flattering cut), come to Peel St, hunt out the complimentary textas, try and be creative… I know. It sounds like way too much work to me too. Whatever happened to good ol’ fashioned consumerism?

 

 

 

6PM this Friday night (05.03.2010).

Well yeh sure, we know it’s not really the Street Dreams opening night, but any excuse for another party at the luxurious Format space is Ohkay with us. This is a chance to hang out at the venue, have a chat to some of the artists and organisers. There’s gonna be CHEEP beers, projection tagging and projected graffiti movies, live art, live music (down the stairs), and more!!

 

 

 

6PM this Thursday night (04.03.2010).

Come and join us on a street art walking tour with a difference. Leading the precession will be everybody’s favourite ex-adelaide street art and graffiti know-it-all Chris Tamm. “Been there, done that” I hear you say. Well, this time there is a twist. A twist in the fabric of spacetime. Yep, this year we’ve hotted up Carclew’s G.R.L. projector bike with the flux capacitor we found on ebay, allowing us to take you back to the graffiti of the past.

We’ll meet at Format (15 Peel Street) at 6:00 PM, and when everyone has turned up, we’ll head west to discover existing pieces, paste-ups, stickers and stencils, with Chris discussing the artists, the techniques and the history of graffiti. As the sun sets and the light dims, we will head east, projecting old pieces in their original locations.