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Upfest 2012

2 June 2012

news

We sadly won’t have time to assist to this year’s Upfest edition but given that next Monday it’s bank holiday you have no excuse to grab a little train and go down to Bristol…

Europe’s largest urban art festival will invade Southville (and everything that surrounds North St) once again in its 5th edition covering 2 miles of the city with live paint and creating 20.000 square foot of artwork …

No need to mention the amazing list of international artists that will take all those white walls and murals and that this year brings artists like Ches (Russia), Deuz (France), Frode (Italy), Guy Denning (France) or Mr OneTeas (Monaco). No crisis for the festival as it gets bigger and bigger each year being 2012 the most ambitious of all in terms of programme, activities, workshops and artists concentratio.

Any better plans that some good cider near the Tobacco Factory? I didn’t think so neither, full programme and artists’ full-list this way.

Upfest ’11

13 June 2011

news

Upfest 2011 has been a big bag of contradictory feelings for me. Taking more space than in previous years the 2011 edition occupied a good bunch of space surrounding Bristol’s Tobacco Factory & North Road. More space, more budget, with their shiny new shop opened last year… and room for many more artists, but…..

…maybe it’s a personal impression but it certainly looked like the quality and variety of previous years has slightly declined. Big names & loyal members of the scene were there (Stik, Dommunism, DM, Snub4…) and many others were missing, but we guess that the bigger & bolder it gets, the more sacrifices the festival has to make.

Constantly looking at the sky for those threatening clouds & despite the muggy weather this year’s edition was once again a nice free gift to our eyes… and everyone’s cameras (along with some great freestyle evening). Bristol is and will still be the Graff city for many years to come in the UK & Europe.

Portuguese Caneiro was a great surprise this year — Portuguese Fábio Carneiro was a great surprise this year

More pics of the event on our flickr page. Enjoy!

Bristol: the graffiti city

17 June 2010

When I was about to move to Bristol I started digging about the city lifestyle, the art scene, what to visit, explore, experience…. I heared it was considered to have one of the biggest graffiti scenes not only in the UK but also in Europe with famous artists such as Banksy, Nick Walker, Felix Braun or John Nation coming out of its streets. Then a Londoner came to me and said… “Bristol huh? Yeah well…. you can expect loads of street crap, but that’s all you’ll get”.

: “street crap” near the Royal west of England Academy

And sadly for Bristol this statements turns to be true, although there are a few big known cultural venues you can count on the fingers of one hand (Tobacco Factory, Arnolfini, Watershed, PaintWorks, Spike Island, Old Vic, Cube…. OK that’s more than one hand) as the local museums & galleries are just…. well…. too minimalistic (to put it nice). On the other side you cannot expect a humongous cultural calendar in a city of barely 430k people, but hey, things like the Mayfest, St Paul’s Carnival, Harbour Festival, the Balloon Fiesta, …. there are things to do, don’t get me wrong but… being from a big city….I just prefer an overwhelming choice list.

However, there’s something about the street art scene which makes Bristol unique, Bristol is UK’s “graffiti city” indeed.

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