Living Walls, the City Speaks

(images courtesy of Living Walls Conference, Creative Loafing and Brooklyn Street Art.)

Come this August, our city will play host to the much-anticipated Living Walls, the City Speaks conference, an international, no-holds-barred, outdoor exhibition of street art. As seen recently in Creative Loafing, the very first mural has been completed on the West side of Atlanta by Oakland, California based street artist, Doodles. Canvasing 3,500 square feet, the piece stretches across the entire rear exterior of a building at the corner of Ralph David Abernathy and White Street. One of a number of local and international artists hailing from Europe and South America who will participate in the conference, Doodles has been on the scene for four years now. This large scale figure representing Poseidon comes as a timely reaction to the BP oil spill, and should not be missed!

Living Walls can be seen as part of a larger overarching movement to amp up Atlanta's urban planning, and fuel fundraising for the local arts scene. Similarly, the BeltLine transit system, and like-named 'Art on the BeltLine' project, which runs through October of this year, has been gracing Atlanta's streets with the works of local artists for months now. As citizens of the largest metropolis in the Southeast, Atlantans are feeling a surge of motivation to step out in defense of local artists and artisans as the economic downturn is still being felt, and budgets cuts seem never ending.

Also a part of the conference, scheduled for the week of August 13, is a lecture series featuring the Georgia Tech architecture department, and presentations at Eyedrum. The largest and perhaps most widely-hyped gathering leading up to the main event is being held at 7:00 p.m. this Saturday, June 26 at Mint Gallery and is hosted by Dashboard Co-op. The "Art Auction and Celebration of Badasses" will feature works donated by local artists to support the movement.

To donate, or learn more about Living Walls, please visit them online, or to read profiles of artists and updates on fundraising efforts, spend a few minutes on their blog. We hope to see you there this weekend!