"Poetry is in the Streets"
Welcome to the latest edition of Nuart Aberdeen. As far as we can ascertain, this will be the first street art festival in the world with a focus primarily on poetry and text-based works. Over the years, for better or worse, the large scale colourful figurative mural has come to dominate the culture we work with, and although it’s an aspect of the culture we support, due to the resources required to produce murals, they’re perhaps also the least democratic form of art on the streets. As curators, researchers and producers working in “festival” culture, we have a responsibility to not only showcase and celebrate the most interesting and technically competent works of our time, but to also ensure the culture’s development and survival. The only way to do this, is to inspire and encourage those without the privilege of a fine art degree or access to the arts, to have a go themselves. This has always been Nuart’s primary goal, not just to produce art, but to also inspire and produce the next generation of artists. A lofty goal, particularly as it’s often in conflict with the stated needs of sponsors and partners, on paper at least, and no one stands in front of a Tower block mural and thinks, I’ll pop home and have a go myself on the gable end of Gran’s house.
What we do have evidence for, is that the smaller, more human scale works – the stencils and paste ups and interventions – do have this effect. You could say that the ease of copying a Banksy stencil, which requires no more than a craft knife, a piece of cardboard and an idea, is the very foundation of this culture. We’ve seen this happen time and time again. Indeed, several of the producers and artists joining us this year, started their artistic journey as assistants and volunteers at Nuart.
At Nuart, we’ve always prided ourselves on not only showcasing the BIG names in muralism, but on also using the festival as a place to explore and experiment with new forms and ideas that engage with the idea of the whole city as a canvas, and not just the wall. In this respect, Nuart Aberdeen have been fortunate enough to have the support of some of the most thoughtful and progressive partners that an event such as Nuart could possibly have, and this year is no different.
Whilst pondering this issue, how to balance the needs of partners, tourist boards, with the need to impress the public, and create works of curiosity and interest for scholars which inspire the next generation, I imagined a city without art on the streets, with no forms of public expression, where all art is concealed behind the walls of city institutions and under guard 24/7. And then I recalled a piece of graffiti sprayed on the walls of Paris during the 1968 student uprising, an event which saw waves of creative energy explode onto the streets. It read, “La poésie est dans la rue”, or “Poetry is in the Streets” – could we harness some of this energy at Nuart to revitalise and energise the culture?
A short while later, I remembered a quote from pioneering UK graffiti writer Mode2. He was discussing how graffiti culture had taken hold and blossomed in the UK in the 1980s, and in a throwaway quip had said, the reason it took hold was because regardless of how interested you were in making art at school, if you couldn’t draw or paint realistically, you were bottom of the class. Then graffiti came along, and it struck everyone that all you had to know to create and engage with it, was your ABC’s.
And that was it. It was these two quite innocuous events that formed the genesis of this year’s poetry and text based Nuart. These are forms of creative expression that we all have access to and I hope the festival sparks the public’s imagination in the same way that those early bubble letters and Banksy stencils did.
Thank you as ever to all of our sponsors, partners and to the city council, for allowing us once again to make a contribution to what we believe is a magical and inspiring city.
— Martyn Reed, Nuart Founder and Curator
