HKwalls Street Art and Mural Festival

EVENT DESCRIPTION

After a one-year hiatus due to the pandemic, HKwalls, Hong Kong’s leading street art festival, is excited to announce the 8^th Street Art and Mural Festival which will run from 18 to 26 March 2023 in the Central and Western Districts. Co-sponsored by Chivas Regal and Vans, and supported by eicó, an eco-friendly paint products brand, the Festival unites an incredible line-up of talented street artists from Hong Kong and around the world in its embrace of street culture and creativity through art.

This year, the Festival won’t just transform neighbourhoods into outdoor galleries, it will take the unconventional art form to another level with some exciting new experiences. Highlights include a collaboration with Sino Group to display a large-scale digital animation art piece created by J. Demsky, a renowned contemporary visual artist from Spain, on the façades of its buildings in East Tsim Sha Tsui; a not-to-be-missed whisky and street art experience along with a graffiti art battle sponsored by Chivas Regal. These events, together with an exclusive exhibition, a series of engaging workshops and public tours to strengthen the connection between the community and the artists, will make the creative process of mural painting accessible to everyone.

Exciting line-up of local artists and international talents that are new to Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Arts month is in full swing throughout March, and so is the artist line-up for HKwalls 2023. In addition to the local artists, the Festival will welcome six globally- renowned mural and street artists making their first brushstrokes in the city to create a cross-genre of street art cultures to Hong Kong.

The overseas artists include: Matthieu Koga (@koga.one), a French mural artist famous for his darkly ironic yet colourful painting style; Mára Cmára (@mara_cmara) from the Czech Republic, who focuses on illustration and combining drawing with digital colouring; INNERFIELDS (@innerfields), a Berlin based art collective skilled in creating realistic, environment – related figurative motives mixed with graphical elements and symbols; Zed1 (@zed1_art), an Italian artist who moves through a delicate dance of shapes and colours with a sense of postmodern surrealism; Jurne (@scienceism), a mural artist from Portland, US., who is expert in creating works with letterforms and gestural marks that interplay with photographic elements inspired by his previous experience working as a scientist in the stem-cell biology research field; and Lauren YS (@squid.licker), a Los Angeles-based mural artist, with a mixed Asian-American heritage and a bold and rebellious manner, who creates works inspired by ‘queer’ worlds, non-binary identities, mythology and more. Lauren YS seeks to bring an element of the fantastic and narrative fluidity to the dignity of the characters’ person-hoods.

For a more direct and engaging experience, street art fans can visit the sites during the Festival, meet the artists in person and explore the creative process of murals.

HKwalls is also dedicated to nurturing talented young artists with its Youth Mentorship Programme, powered by CASETiFY. This offers budding young artists the opportunity to embark on a learning experience to improve their artistic skills, try new techniques, and learn how to transform creative ideas into painted murals. In the 4^th edition of the programme, three selected mentees and their mentors: Grace Kam with Zoie Lam, Reana Bachiller with Mooncasket, and Timmy Lee with Carol Mui and Rebecca T Lin, will work closely together to create three murals at The Wheel along the Central Harbourfront, especially for the Festival.

In addition to the wall paintings in streets and alleys, HKwalls will also be introducing a spectacular animated art piece on the LED façades of Tsim Sha Tsui Centre and Empire Centre, which are facing the Victoria Harbour, supported by Sino Group. Designed by the acclaimed Spanish artist J. Demsky, the contemporary piece features a futuristic skyline in the middle of a science fiction narrative reminiscent of a scene in the movie “Ghost in the Shell”. This echoes with the artist’s signature style of balancing the future with nostalgia and radical creativity with exact science rooted in the interconnected relationship between space and time.

Climactic finale with whisky and music

To wrap up the Festival, HKwalls will host a fun whisky & art evening experience with live Hip Hop DJ sets, whiskies and an exciting street art battle at Soho House, Sheung Wan on 26 March 2023, sponsored by Chivas Regal.

Guests will have the opportunity to enjoy a variety of Chivas Blended Scotch whiskies & cocktails by top mixologists in HK while watching two teams with six of the local and international artists from the festival line-up go head-to-head in a live painting battle to create artwork under the theme of “I Rise, We Rise”. Offering an opportunity for emerging local artists and international headliners to celebrate their talents and showcase their rewarding journey through the art interactions, echoing the brand values of Chivas Regal. A judging panel and a live audience will vote to decide the winning team who will get a cash prize and two cases of Chivas 18-years.

Over the 9-day Festival, HKwalls will collaborate with artists, Hip Hop DJs and Wanderlust Walk, a local street-art tour operator, to host guided tours around town, panel discussions and interactive workshops on music, art, and graffiti, plus an open exhibition at Soho House, Sheung Wan featuring creative and original artworks from the artists that are participating in the festival. For more details, ticketing and registration for the public events and the art battle, visit https://hkwalls.org/ and follow HKwalls on social media.