walkARTbout – This Is Not Art Festival 2010

Brief

walkARTbout was a temporary public art walk for the 2010 TINA Festival, conceived by then Festival Director Simone Sheridan, as a way to attract new visitors and foot traffic to festival venues, whilst brightening public spaces with an outdoor gallery. It was made up of a series of unique, creative and inspiring public art works that formed an art walk around Newcastle city, taking you to exciting and unexplored areas of the city.

Project Information

A funding application to Copyright Agency Limited was approved to create a temporary artwalk to coincide with the five day arts festival. The project employed a curator, Carli Hyland, to oversee more than 15 artists to produce artworks in public spaces. Artworks varied from green art like guerilla gardening, temporary paste-ups to aerosol artworks to stencils. Once the festival ended, a major property sponsor (The GPT Group) asked for more artworks to be produced, as the public response was very positive. So Street Art Walking was born, transforming a temporary art project into an ongoing gallery, indoors and out.

Testimonial

‘We commissioned the artworks in Morgan Street to lift and beautify the area, to which they have done with flying colours. We have noted a decrease in graffiti vandalism to our properties and since the artworks were installed we have had no problems with anyone damaging them. I have regularly seen people wander up the lane to see the artworks, often taking photographs. It is great to see more people in the area with smiles on their face. The artworks have really lifted the whole atmosphere of Morgan Street and The Hunter Street Mall.’ – Nicholas Walsh, Marketing Coordinator, Hunter Street Outlets. The GPT Group